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PRIVACY
Economic Development

The North East firms who see opportunities in Brexit

Not all firms in the region fear the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ's departure from the EU

Tony Cleary, founder of the Lanchester group of companies(Image: Lanchester Wines)

Brexit isn’t all bad for business, according to some North East firms which have taken steps to seek out opportunities.

The Lanchester Group of businesses, which imports and exports wines from all over the world, has one of the largest and most modern contract wine bottlers in Europe, filling more than 90,000 bottles and boxes of wine every hour, six days a week.

Founder Tony Cleary is confident there will be a smooth transition on October 31, not least of all because of its AEO (Authorised Economic Operator) status.

Bottling facilities at Greencroft Bottling

 

He said: “Brexit has come along and it’s fallen into our lap. It won’t be a problem I don’t think.

"We are in a unique position. We are very much a ‘new world’ company, with 95% of or wine coming from new world areas like Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, California and Australia. They are our major bottling areas.

“The way we are looking at it, I’m reasonably confident things will go fine. Customs are happy, HMRC are well set-up. Most people are set up.

“You get sick of people saying ‘there will be queues of lorries and we can’t get medicines in’. Can you imagine HMRC stopping everything at Dover? Who is saying these things? It’s just Project Fear and I don’t know why they do it. Let’s just get on with it.”

Elsewhere Grant Murray, regional manager for the North at currency exchange specialist XE. said: “What the market doesn’t like is the uncertainty piece so we are unsure what is going to happen and on what date and what those outcomes of these things are going to be. We still don’t have any clarity about it.