by Gabriela Wyszynska, Business Reporter
picture courtesy of Gabriela Wyszynska
Shoppers will see a reduced choice of food on the shelves due to supply chain pressures, MPs have been warned. This could particularly affect Christmas purchasing options.
With labour shortages and border issues and delays, a key decision is to have less range of products to avoid shortages and make supply chains more efficient.
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) has previously estimated there is a shortage of more than 100,000 qualified HGV drivers in the UK.
Fresh food deliveries are taking three days to reach shops from ports instead of within 24 hours because of shortages of lorry drivers. For frozen food, the gap has increased from between one and three days to up to five and six days.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics covering shelf availability of products between Friday 5 November and Monday 8th showed 18% of frozen turkeys either were not available or stock was low.
However, Downing Street has announced that turkey supplies were safe this Christmas but “individual sectors” would continue to face issues.