London, UK: The signatories of a letter to the prime minister warning of a crisis in food supply reads like a who’s who of the logistics industry.
That letter follows a meeting with the minister for transport, Charlotte Vere, last week where industry representatives warned that vacancies meant a summer of food shortages is likely.
The loss of thousands of truck drivers, warehouse staff, food packers, and food processing staff due to Covid and Brexit, was creating a short term crisis that need immediate relief.
Food and logistics industry leaders call for urgent intervention to allow eastern European drivers into the country on special visas, similar to those issued to farm pickers.
The big retailers are skilful at managing their supply chains and at keeping stores stocked, or at least maintaining the appearance of well-stocked stores. But some fear that as shortages develop and become more obvious the inevitable surge ion panic buying will dramatically escalate the shortages.
Tesco is already admitting that food is going to waste with the the driver shortage affecting fresh food with a short shelf life.
Driver shortages are a ticking time bomb if left unchecked said Rob Wright, executive director at Scala, speaking on ITV. “Between Brexit crippling recruitment from the EU, IR35 tax changes leading many drivers to leave the industry, and a growing backlog of driving tests caused by the pandemic, this continued disruption could spell catastrophe for businesses after one of the most difficult years on record,” he said.
“To combat these driver shortages, the government must provide the much-needed support that the industry has been demanding for so long. The government must provide monetary grants to support the industry, amend immigration policy to place drivers on the shortage occupations list and significantly increase the availability of HGV driver tests after the blockage created by the coronavirus lockdowns.
“Simply enough, the industry’s demands for support must be heard and actioned upon, or this crisis could get much worse,” Wright said.
James Mee, a blueberry farmer from Peterborough, warned that unless there is government intervention, food could rot in the fields with concerns in the farming community for the late summer grain harvest in addition to soft fruits.
“We have been told by the haulier company we have used for years that they can only come and pick up our fruit once a week. But the fruit only have a five-day shelf life so we need picking up every day. If we can’t get our fruit to the supermarkets, that is massively significant,” Mee said.
“There is an enormous shortage of HGV drivers that we estimate at between 85,000 and 100,000,” said Richard Burnett, chief executive, Road Haulage Association. “We are weeks away from gaps on the shelves, it is as serious as that,” he said,
A RHA survey of 796 businesses that employ 45,000 drivers showed that all companies had vacancies. “We are saying to the government that they must put HGV drivers on the shortage occupation list urgently. We need to get a pool of labour quickly because we cannot train them quickly enough and we need to plug this gap. We’ll have British HGV drivers going on summer holiday soon, which means no backfill at all. So the problem is only going to get worse,” Burnett said.
Shane Brennan, chief executive, Cold Chain Federation, said: “We are seeing big vacancies in key roles, drivers being the most important one but also in our production line, our packing lines. We’re seeing intermittent supply chain failures into retail and hospitality that is just building week by week.”
With the easing of lockdown, demand for chilled food warehouses was at Christmas levels and would get worse as the country approached “freedom day” and hospitality venues opened,” Brennan said.
“I think it is going to be like a series of rolling power cuts in that we are going to see shortages, then shelves replenished, and shortages again. That is going to carry on for as long as demand is unpredictable and labour remains as tight as it is,” he said.
The letter to the prime minister was signed by the Food and Drink Federation, British Frozen Food Federation, Federation of Wholesale Distributors, Cold Chain Federation, Meat Producers Association and the British Beer and Pub Association.
“We firmly believe that intervention from the prime minister/Cabinet Office is the only way we will be able to avert critical supply chains failing at an unprecedented and unimaginable level. Supermarkets are already reporting that they are not receiving their expected food stocks and, as a result, there is considerable wastage,” it said.
Brexit and Covid have created the “perfect storm” for the sector, Burnett said. “We don’t know if it’s because Europeans who would traditionally be in these roles have left because of Brexit or because of Covid and aren’t able to come back yet because of the pandemic, but it is a very real problem.”
The risk was that, unless something was done quickly, supply of food from outside the UK could also be hit. “If you overlay the end of the grace period for checks on food products and the Europeans are not yet ready to do paperwork, we could be facing a really significant problem here in terms of food supply chain,” Burnett said.
A new approach is needed to secure coldchain skills for the future and attract more young people into the industry, says Tim Moran, president, Cold Chain Federation. Businesses across the UK’s cold chain are experiencing a labour crunch which threatens to jeopardise the industry’s efforts to revive temperature-controlled supply chains as restrictions ease on the hospitality and food service sectors, he said, speaking at the federation’s annual general meeting this week.
