Like British cheddar? Enjoy it while you can still find it

The grey weather outside Darren Larvin's window in Wiltshire, U.K., when he spoke to CBC News last Tuesday matched the forecast for his company's Canadian cheese sales in 2024.

"Essentially, we're going to fall off the edge of a cliff at the end of this year," said the managing director of Coombe Castle International, an award-winning global exporter of British dairy products like specialty creams, butters and cheeses.

After Brexit — the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union in 2020 — an interim agreement kept tariff-free British cheese on Canadian shelves for three years, as government negotiators worked on a longer-term bilateral trade deal to replace the liberalized trade the U.K. enjoyed under the terms of Canada's Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the EU.

Those bilateral negotiations have yet to land. And in the meantime, both sides confirm their temporary cheese deal expires at the end of 2023. There's a risk British cheese imports are set to nosedive.

After four decades of working with other top British cheesemakers to find openings for fancy U.K. cheddars in Canada's notoriously closed dairy market, Larkin admits to feeling "pretty desperate." This change affects about one-third of his business. While British cheese shipments may not drop to zero, he's poised to lose a lot of Canadian shelf space. 

According to international trade data, the U.K. exported over two million kilograms of cheese to Canada in 2022 — and a massive slice of that are Coombe Castle products. Cheese is a seasonal commodity: trade data suggests Canadians love their party platters and holiday gift baskets at this time of year, with strong demand for the kind of specialty cheddars Coombe Castle ships — which includes Advent calendars and even a maple cheddar uniquely targeted at Canadian tastes.

Larvin says his company worked with its Canadian partner to ship as much as it can to close out 2023. But once that stock sells through, jobs are at risk for not only his U.K. suppliers but also small businesses in Canada like the boutique shops that feature his products.

CBC News reached Lisa MacNeil from Tree of Life, a Toronto company that partners with Coombe Castle to import British cheeses. She confirmed this change negatively impacts her business too, and said "it didn't need to happen."

Canada's dairy industry believes the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU (and by extension, CETA) shouldn't become their problem to fix. 

In the aftermath of the bruising renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised dairy farmers that no additional slices of Canada's domestic market will be served up to exporters in future negotiations.

"For dairy farmers, a promise made is a promise kept and we expect the same from our government," Dairy Farmers of Canada president Pierre Lampron wrote in a Dec. 1 letter to Trudeau, reminding him that trade deals the Liberals implemented since coming into office have, by the dairy sector's calculations, already outsourced 18 per cent of Canada's market to foreign producers.

"The Canadian dairy industry must not be further penalized by the U.K.'s decision," Lampron said. "New access to the Canadian dairy sector should remain off the negotiation table."

A private member's bill currently in the Senate could also tie negotiators' hands and prohibit future trade treaties from conceding additional imports of supply-managed farm products like cheese.

To import cheese tariff-free, a business needs to hold tariff rate quota (TRQ) — permits assigned by the Canadian government for specific annual volumes, subject to specific criteria.