//Which is why the vast majority of containers arrive at Felistowe and Southampton, not by the lorryload but in containers.//
Indeed dr, but most of that arrives from outside the EU (and, as an aside, rarely can a man with a clipboard be found checking it off for compliance - an arrangement that the EU was quite content with until we decided to leave when it became a major stumbling block).
The events of the past few days have demonstrated yet again (as if we needed any reminders because it happens whenever the French get weary of burning tyres in the Champs-Élysées) that it is foolish in the extreme to depend so much on that single route. The number of trucks that built up around Dover in just a single day illustrates that any sort of problem on that route will lead to major disruption. Any nation that has to regularly use a facility to stack up hundreds of trucks on a motorway awaiting passage is simply asking for trouble.
As for imported strawberries at Christmas - they are terrible. They are unpalatable to start with and they do not travel well. The soft fruit production season has been extended in the UK and now lasts from about April to October. Both ends of that period are not conducive to producing soft fruit. In April there is not nearly enough daylight and warmth so the fruit has to be grown in polytunnels. By September the same problems arise. The imports come mainly from Spain, Israel and Morocco. The first Spanish efforts arrive in around late February and they are truly awful. Their texture is more akin to that of a rotting apple and they taste of nothing in particular. All that can be said for them is that they are red (well some of them are, most of them are pale pink with a white area where the stalk is) and shaped like a strawberry. There, the resemblance ends.
Strawberries are best eaten straight from the plant whilst they are still warm from the sun. As soon as you move away from the strawberry field, deterioration begins. You can just about get away with ferrying them about in mid-summer. If you've a third rate product to begin with and you then cart it a coupe of thousand miles, by the time it reaches the customer it is barely recognisable (by taste at least) as a strawberry. You can't have strawberries in the winter in the UK and the further you move away from June and July (in either direction) the less satisfactory the product becomes.