* BRC warns of risk to food supply and food prices
* Plea made ahead of key meeting of UK ministers
LONDON, July 5 (Reuters) - The British government and theEuropean Union must avoid a no-deal Brexit "at all costs" asthis would clog up food supplies, raise prices and throwretailers out of business, the UK retail industry's lobby groupsaid on Thursday.
The warning from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) came aday before British Prime Minister Theresa May hosts ministers ather country residence to try to reach agreement on how to pushon with the all-but-stalled Brexit talks.
In a letter to May and the EU's Brexit negotiator MichelBarnier, BRC chairman Richard Pennycook said failure to reach adeal that protects the free flow of goods after Brexit on March29, 2019, would harm both UK consumers and EU-based producers.
"Failure to reach a deal – the cliff edge scenario – willmean new border controls and multiple ‘non-tariff barriers’,through regulatory checks, that will create delays, waste andfailed deliveries," he said.
"The consequences of this will be dramatic for UK consumers.It is likely that we will see food rotting at ports, reducingthe choice and quality of what is available to consumers."
The BRC's intervention follows similar warnings from severalother businesses, including Jaguar Land Rover,Airbus, Siemens and John Lewis.
Pennycook, the former boss of the Co-operative Group, notedthat 50 percent of Britain's food is imported, and of that 60percent comes from the EU.
He said that in 2016 3.6 million containers from the EUpassed through UK ports, equating to more than 50,000 tonnes perday of food. These goods can currently enter the UK with minimaldelay, allowing for frictionless trade.
HIGHER PRICES
Pennycook said food and beverage products would face anaverage increase in the cost of importing from the EU of up to29 percent from non-tariff barriers alone and warned that manyof these increases would be passed on to consumers in higherprices.
The BRC has also estimated that more than 12,500 smallretail businesses will be at risk of going bust, while EUbusinesses face losing 21 billion pounds ($27.8 billion) ofagri-food exports to Britain.
Pennycook said time was running out for the food supplychain as EU farmers needed to know who their customers would bebefore planting their crops or raising their animals thisautumn, for delivery to UK consumers next spring.
At Friday's meeting in Chequers, May's country residence,the prime minister is expected to propose a new plan to easetrade and offer Britain more freedom to set tariffs afterBrexit.
($1 = 0.7551 pounds)(Reporting by James Davey)
