Belfast, Northern Ireland: Northern Irish hauliers have told The Grocer magazine that supply chains could collapse within weeks without urgent government intervention.
Refrigerated transport operator Morgan McLernon is using cash from its reserves but warns that it can only sustain this for another two to three weeks.
The company says that intense competition and rate cutting is making logistics unprofitable at the moment.
Seamus Leheny, Northern Ireland policy manager at the Freight Transport Association, says that transport firms feel that there is a moral obligation to keep trading.
“If they stop moving the goods, it will have a direct impact on what’s available on the supermarket shelves.”
Leheny points to one company that can regularly fill trucks heading eastbound into Great Britain, but can only reach half capacity on return. The company has worked out that it will lose more than £1m of its cash reserves by the end of May.
“They need to see some light at the end of the tunnel and see some sort of intervention from government. As yet, we haven’t got that,” said Leheny.
