If you are anything like me, I don’t expect you have given much thought to the weight of bananas, the sugar content of grapes or the quality of citrus fruit. However, these are the variables put under scrutiny by the beady-eyed customs inspectors at DP World London Gateway, who will use them to judge how much tax to slap onto the tonnes of fresh fruit imported weekly into the UK from the ports of South America, Australia and, increasingly, Asia.

London Gateway is a colossal deep-sea port that lies only a twenty-minute drive from our constituency in Thurrock and last week I was invited to see this awe-inspiring facility by a local meat importing company based in Harold Wood. The port was first opened for business in 2013, designed to provide first-class docking facilities for modern container ships and billed as the perfect location from which exporters could target the lucrative consumer markets of London and the South East.

In dredging thirty million tonnes out of the Thames estuary, the construction of the port led to the creation of a whole new part of Essex, while the on-site wildlife was carefully catered to, including an £800 000 tunnel for newts. It was also at London Gateway that the UK got its first female quay crane driver, who had previously worked as a beautician on Canvey Island.

Alongside the docking facilities is a new logistics park, while DEFRA, the UK Border Agency and police all have their own on-site operations including drive-in freezers to check the quality of imported meat and even giant radiation detectors that scan containers to ensure no dangerous material is being smuggled into the country.

It is fascinating to watch the gargantuan container ships be relieved of their cargo, with sophisticated cranes clicking containers straight onto the backs of waiting lorries, ready to make their way to our shops and then into our baskets. With trade and the preparedness of our ports sidling into the spotlight as we prepare to leave the European Union, I was glad to see that London Gateway stands ready to take advantage of the new markets that we hope will be opening to UK businesses and consumers.