What Happened
The National Audit Office (NAO) published a report on 4 September 2026 into the resilience of the UK food supply chain, and the Cold Chain Federation (CCF) has welcomed it. According to the CCF, the report provides independent evidence supporting many of the concerns and recommendations the federation has been raising with government.
The NAO report examines the risks facing the UK food supply, and Defra’s understanding and management of those risks. The CCF’s post argues that government must engage more with households, communities and industry to strengthen resilience to shocks.
What the NAO Food Supply Report Means for UK Cold Chain Shippers
The report does not itself change any border procedure, so chilled and frozen imports move exactly as they did last week. Its value to UK shippers is independent scrutiny of how Defra identifies risk across food supply chains, including the temperature-controlled storage and haulage links the CCF represents. That matters because a failure in one link, such as cold store capacity near a port, can hold perishable loads with a shelf life measured in days.
The report lands after a run of shocks that tested UK food flows. In December 2020, France closed its border to UK traffic for 48 hours after a new Covid variant was identified, leaving thousands of lorries queued in Kent, many carrying perishable exports. In September 2021, the shutdown of CF Fertilisers’ plants at Billingham and Ince cut UK supply of carbon dioxide, which food producers use for packaging, processing and dry ice. Both showed how quickly a single failure reaches chilled and frozen goods.
The next point to watch is Defra’s response. NAO reports are often followed by a Public Accounts Committee inquiry, which would put the department’s plans on record. Separately, the UK and EU agreed in May 2025 to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement intended to remove most routine checks on EU animal and plant products, which have faced Border Target Operating Model controls at border control posts such as Sevington since April 2024. For businesses using cold chain freight services, a deal on SPS would have a more direct effect on transit times than this report.
Key Takeaway: Scrutiny Now, Border Changes Later
The NAO report adds independent weight to the CCF’s concerns about food supply resilience, but it changes no customs or SPS procedure for chilled and frozen goods. UK importers and exporters should track Defra’s formal response and progress on a UK-EU SPS agreement, because those are the developments that would alter border handling.
Market Impact on Chilled and Frozen Food Freight
The report has no immediate bearing on rates, capacity or transit times for temperature-controlled freight. Refrigerated trailers through Dover and the Channel Tunnel, and reefer containers through Southampton, Felixstowe and London Gateway, continue to move under existing rules. Its likely influence is on planning. If government accepts the case for stronger resilience, cold storage near ports and inland distribution hubs could draw more policy attention, although nothing in the published summary commits Defra to a specific measure.
Exporters face a similar picture. Chilled and frozen products of animal origin leaving Great Britain for the EU have needed export health certificates signed by an authorised certifier since January 2021, and they enter through EU border control posts on arrival. A domestic resilience plan will not change those EU-side requirements. For meat, dairy and seafood exporters, certification lead times and certifier availability remain the practical constraints on transit, and they deserve more attention in shipment planning than this report.
Reported by the Plexus Freight team, from Cold Chain Federation.
