It's only been two weeks since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, but the uncertainty it's created is already affecting a maple syrup processor in Halifax.

Just two days before the EU referendum, Nova Scotia-based Acadian Maple Products met with its distributor from the U.K. The company placed a $200,000 order for a 12-metre shipping container of maple syrup products.

But shortly after the U.K. voted to leave the EU, the distributor called Acadian back and cut the order in half.

Order cut due to uncertainty

The result of the vote was a "big disappointment" for Acadian, says company president Brian Allaway.

"The distributors need the product because their clients want the products in their stores," explained Allaway. He said the cut to the order "was strictly because of the uncertainty."

Along with the political uncertainty that's been created by the Brexit vote, the British pound has taken a hit. It plunged after the results came in, and has continued to weaken since then.

Pound rebound might take time

This week it hit a fresh 31-year low, and that lower value makes it more expensive for U.K. companies to buy abroad. For companies like Acadian, that's a concern.

"We have our fingers crossed that the pound is going to rebound, but how long is that going to take?" Allaway said.

Allaway said Acadian's biggest export market is the European Union and, of the product Acadian ships to the EU, 40 to 50 per cent is specifically to the U.K.

Scotia Economic's chief economist, Jean-François Perrault, said a major drop in Canadian exports to the U.K. "is going to hurt some small firms quite a bit" and he expects more stories like this one.

At the same time, Perrault says, the Brexit won't have huge macro-economic consequences for Canada.

"It's more noise than anything."

'We have to ride it'

Canada's exports to the U.K. are just a fraction of Canada's total global exports. According to Statistics Canada, in 2015 Canada exported $524 billion of goods globally. Just $15.9 billion of that was to the U.K., and only $103 million of that was from Nova Scotia.

For Allaway, whose employees were bottling the last of the smaller shipment Thursday, volatility is part of doing business.

"This is one more hitch in the world economy and I think, eventually it will ride itself out, but we have to ride it while it's going."