From Brexit to coronavirus: why Co-op, McDonald’s and Nando’s are experiencing supply shortages

Photos of sterile supermarket shelves circulated on social media throughout the summer – a dismal backdrop for what was to be a season of ‘freedom’ from coronavirus restrictions, ushering in the return of the ‘ old normality ”very preferred and long rejected.

The summer turned out to be rainy and still quite Covidy, and an estimated shortage of 100,000 truck drivers creating the supply chain issues that keep food from reaching the right destinations certainly didn’t help the mood. national.

As to why this happened, the Remainers are shouting ‘Brexit’ and Brexiteers are running to the well-stocked aisles to take pictures claiming that, no, there is no food shortage, in fact. But what is really going on and who can we blame? Let’s walk the aisles to find answers.

Which companies are affected?

Whether there have been any shortages in the supply chain in recent months is hardly in dispute. After all, supermarkets have issued reluctant statements about the disruption they’ve faced.

Steve Murrells, chief executive of the cooperative group, said he was cutting some ranges as the industry’s ability to get food to stores was affected by post-Brexit and Covid-19 migration rules.

“The shortages are at a worse level than at any time that I have seen,” he told The Times.

Meanwhile, Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland, has warned that there is a growing danger of empty shelves at Christmas.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the company routinely has to cancel up to 30 or 40 deliveries a day, with up to 100 stores running out of bread and other basic goods and stocks of soft drinks at about 50% of normal.

Arla, which supplies milk to around 2,400 stores each day in the UK, said she was unable to deliver to 600 stores on the last Saturday in July due to shortages.

Meanwhile, milkshake fans across the country were disappointed yesterday, after learning that McDonald’s was running out of ingredients to make them, and would also temporarily stop stocking bottled drinks in 1,250 of its stores. in England, Scotland and Wales.

Nando’s had to close 50 of its stores last week for about four days, due to a chicken shortage, while KFC was also unable to stock some menu items.

And Greggs said they were experiencing supply chain issues “for certain ingredients,” affecting inventory at some stores.

Wetherspoons, Subway, and Beefeater also reported some issues.

How did we get there ?

Brexi

Post-Brexit immigration rules and workers choosing to leave the UK (we don’t know why) have made recruiting difficult, according to the Road Haulage Association (RHA).

Some 14,000 EU heavy truck drivers left their jobs in the UK in the 12 months leading up to June 2020, and only 600 returned in the past year, according to analysis of labor force data. Work of the Office for National Statistics commissioned by Logistics UK.

On top of that, Brexit – a policy designed in part to cut red tape and red tape – has created a lot of, ahem, bureaucracy and bureaucracy slowing the routes by which goods enter the UK. Controls have been in place since January.

“If you overlap the end of the grace period for food controls and the Europeans aren’t ready to do any paperwork yet, we could be facing some really big issues here in terms of the supply chain. food, ”warned Richard Burnett, CEO of RHA, speaking to the Huffington Post.

Industry bodies have repeatedly called on the government to allow EU workers to return to bridge the gap.

Logistics UK spokesperson Alex Veitch told the I: “The industry is working hard to recruit new drivers, with new apprenticeship and other training programs in place and working with DVSA to speed up its testing regime, but these steps will take some time. to produce new conductors.

“Our industry needs drivers now, and we urge the government to replicate its temporary visa program, introduced for agricultural workers, for logistics to keep trucks and vans moving in the short term.”

In a statement, Helen Dickinson, managing director of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), added: how to fund heavy truck driver training.

Coronavirus

The coronavirus lockdown created a huge backlog of around 30,000 truck drivers waiting to take their heavy truck tests.

That’s not all. Do you remember when the pandemic was renamed “pingdemic” this summer?

And an app notifying people that they had been in contact with someone with coronavirus and therefore should self-isolate was more hated than the virus, you know, often dangerous?

Either way, the pandemic or pingemia means people infected or in contact with the coronavirus are unable to work, creating more shortages. The total number of workers absent for this reason reached a record high of over 600,000 at the end of July.

What happened first, Brexit or Covid?

It seems that these two policies are also catastrophic by causing the shortage. In a statement released in June, Burnett said: ‘We don’t know if it’s because the Europeans who traditionally occupy these roles have left because of Brexit or because of Covid and are not yet able to return to cause of the pandemic, but it is a very real problem.

What solutions are envisaged?

So this is the problem we are in, but what is the solution? Some companies are taking matters into their own hands and getting people to keep on trucking. Amazon, for its part, is paying recruits a bonus of £ 1,000 to fill vacant warehouse positions in Coventry, Darlington, Dartford, Redditch and Swansea.

Tesco is also offering new drivers a £ 1,000 bonus and a ‘market supplement’ over a six-month period, in accordance with a job offer.

The government also became aware of the crisis and launched various solutions. The Department of Transportation said longer trucks could be on the roads by next year, according to reports. The longer design is expected to save up to one in eight trips by incorporating more freight.

And Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps recently increased the maximum time a truck driver can spend on the road from nine to 10 hours. Those who are concerned with health and safety cut out.

Meanwhile, some reports indicate that the government has requested support from the military, as some 2,000 military personnel are trained truck drivers. If they’re ready to take over, they could help take over when there is an extreme shortage.

As for Brexit causing staff shortages, the government has said companies should hire domestic workers instead. In a recently released press release, the Home Office said:

“The British people have voted repeatedly to end free movement and take back control of our immigration system and employers should invest in our national workforce instead of depending on the workforce foreign. “

Less than ideal, therefore.