UK food shortages could cancel Christmas — again

Britain has a shortage of 90,000 truck drivers, largely because of Brexit.

Empty shelves confront shoppers at the Nine Elms branch of Sainsburys in March last year in London. Picture: Getty Images

Fancy some Nando’s chicken? Store closed. A McDonald’s milkshake? No, sorry, none today, or tomorrow. Bottled water? None of that either.

How about some butter for toast? I traipsed to three local shops before finding one with just two slabs left. And the bread on offer is limited to non-fancy white.

This is Britain 2021 where supply chain woes are so bad, Nando’s has shut 50 stores, McDonald’s has no drinks and KFC is warning of serious disruptions to its usual menu. Stocks of food are at the lowest levels since records began 40 years ago.

Richard Walker, the managing director of Iceland, a major frozen-food chain, has predicted empty shelves at Christmas.

Parents are being told to stock up on turkeys now, and as for Santa’s favourite toys, orders should have been in weeks ago.

My local convenience store has run out of water and gets ­deliveries once a fortnight instead of three times a week.

While the big supermarkets in London appear to have plenty of food, the choice is becoming limited and uncertain. One city supermarket had just one dessert type in the vast freezers on Thursday. The situation outside London and other big cities appears to be worse.

Mr Walker said it was “criminal” that the country had found itself short of more than 90,000 truck drivers, resulting in cancellations of up to 40 deliveries a day for Iceland and leaving 100 of his stores short of bread and staples. He said stocks of drinks were 50 per cent that of normal.

Steve Murrells, chief executive of the Co-Op supermarket chain, said food shortages were caused by a combination of ­Brexit and Covid-19, which has seen many furloughed workers seek new jobs elsewhere.

He said he has been forced to reduce the choices of products in stores and retrain supermarket staff as truck drivers.

More than 100,000 drivers, abattoir workers and meat process workers left the UK and returned to eastern Europe after Brexit and during the pandemic lockdown. Truck licence testing was halted for many months during lockdown and authorities are only now fast-tracking the ­licence system.

Meanwhile the meat industry says it has 14,000 job vacancies – representing 15 per cent of its workforce. Such is the concern, the Department of Justice has linked with the Association of ­Independent Meat Suppliers to fill labour shortages in abattoirs and butchers with prisoners on temporary release programs.

Last month there were fears that the requirements to self-isolate if in contact with a Covid case would result in food shortages, but the problem has continued even though the isolation rules have been abandoned.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the government was concerned about shortages. “I don’t want people to get the impression that every shelf in every supermarket is bare – that is not the case, but we are certainly concerned about instances of shortages, we are looking at the supply chains of critical industries and we are reviewing that situation,” he said.

But the Federation of Wholesale Distributors said “food distribution can’t wait for new HGV (heavy goods vehicle) drivers to be recruited, trained and tested. The government must address the immediate shortage with a temporary visa scheme for EU drivers.”