Metro News
A British firm is hoarding six months’ worth of olives because of fears over Brexit. The Real Olive Company has stored 80 tonnes in case a no deal interferes with their supply chain.
The Bristol-based company supplies olives to Waitrose and Ocado and in June will add another unnamed major grocery store to their supply list.
Founder Karin Andersson – a Swedish citizen who has lived in the UK for the past 27 years – set up the company with her partner Ben Flight in 1998.
They feared that border delays and tariffs caused by a no-deal Brexit would interfere with their olive supply from Greece, Italy, Spain, Morocco and France.
The business is using seven containers to house its 80-tonne stockpile.
But acquiring such a large amount of olives has required the company to restructure its finances and find several new suppliers.
While the Real Olive Company sells most of their olives domestically, they also export some of their olives to Saudi Arabia and Ireland.
The company supply Waitrose and Ocado (Picture: Getty)
Despite the stockpile, Karin is unsure how Brexit is going to affect sales.
Last year, she went to a trade event in Germany – and she claims attendees were unwilling to make business plans until a definite Brexit strategy was decided.
Karin added: ‘We did a lot of investment that at the time felt high-risk with everything that was going on. ‘We took that jump because we needed to carry on, business carries on.
Our business is not going to stop. ‘People are still going to want to buy olives, and Greece will still want to supply us.’ Prime Minister Theresa May is in mainland Europe today, trying to persuade EU leaders to back a delay to Brexit.
She wants to extend the deadline until June although is aiming to leave earlier if a deal can be done with Labour.
EU leaders are having a crunch summit on Wednesday. All other 27 EU member states need to agree to let us delay Brexit or we will crash out at 11pm on Wednesday without a deal.
