After Brexit suddenly halted British cheesemaker Michael Harte's plans to export his products across Europe, it took four years before his young company, Bridge Cheese, managed to find international buyers again, for its cheddar and mozzarella cheeses – this time in distant Hong Kong.
Harte had banked on a "soft Brexit" that kept frictionless trade after Britain's shock decision on June 23, 2016, to leave the European Union, he said. Instead, the world’s fifth-biggest economy left the common market completely, putting up barriers to the giant on its doorstep.
From its base in Telford, central U.K. – a town best known as the birthplace of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution that helped spread the idea of open economies around the globe – Bridge Cheese's pivot to Asia is now bearing fruit.
This year, it expects to sell more than double the volume of processed cheese to Hong Kong than the annual 100,000 tons it used to send to Europe. Harte hopes to start exports to Malaysia this year and is seeking approvals in Vietnam, Thailand and mainland China and other markets.
But between shortly after the Brexit barriers went up and late 2025, Bridge Cheese had booked no overseas sales at all, relying instead on slowing domestic growth to keep the business going.
