Meringue manufacturing firm Flower and White previously exported to 12 countries across the bloc. But the company’s owner Leanne Crowther said Brexit has been a “disaster” for her business, which is based in Telford.

Mrs Crowther said thousands of pounds worth of stock had been left stranded at ports due to confusion over rules for exporting food products.

She and her husband Brian decided to halt exports to the EU after six months of chaos.

Mrs Crowther said it had been “tricky to plan” for the future of her business before a Brexit deal was struck.

She told the BBC: “The problem we had was nobody really knew what was happening.

“Because we use egg, there was a real problem with ‘do we need to get a vet in to certify the egg?’ and we were being pushed from pillar to post from [the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs] and the Department for Trade and it was so difficult to understand.

“One person would tell us one thing and another would tell us another.”

Flower and White still exports to the US but all sales to the EU have now been stopped.

Mrs Crowther said she is looking to build the business in the UK market before looking to export to the bloc again.

However she added that there was still “lots of opportunity” in the EU.

It comes after Britain and Brussels began a new relationship on January 1 2021 following months of negotiations.

The UK officially left the trading bloc on January 31 2020.

However, there was a transition period until the end of the year where many rules remained the same while the two sides wrangled over a trade deal.

After months of bitter negotiations, a trade deal was finally agreed on December 24, 2021.

Under the agreement, the UK is no longer a member of the EU’s single market or customs union, while trade remains tariff and quota-free.

But the impact of Brexit on trade is highly contested.