Across Britain, a slow-burn problem has erupted into a supply chain crisis in recent weeks, with restaurants, supermarkets and food manufacturers warning customers that some popular products may be temporarily unavailable due to a shortage of truck drivers.
McDonald’s milkshakes, Nando’s chicken, Haribo sweets and supermarket milk are among the items that have become scarce in Britain over the summer. But it’s much more than food: almost every industry is complaining about delivery problems. Indeed, organizations warn of logistical problems The arrival of Christmas toys and trimmings essential to family holiday meals can make a difference.
The long-standing shortage of truck drivers has been exacerbated by the post-Brexit exodus of EU workers. Adding to the problem is the interruption of training for new drivers due to the pandemic. For many years, the trucking industry has struggled to attract new workers to a job that has traditionally been low-paying and requires long, grueling hours.
“95% of everything we get in Britain comes on the back of a lorry,” said Rod McKenzie, policy director at the Road Transport Association, which represents Britain’s road haulage industry, and estimates there is a shortfall of 100,000. Drivers. “So, if there are not enough trucks to go around – and we have reports of large companies having a hundred trucks parked at any one time – there will simply be less goods being delivered.”
Earlier in the summer, German candy company Haribo said it was facing difficulties getting its sweets into British stores. Arla, a large dairy producer, said it had to skip up to a quarter of its shipments. Last week, the famous Nando’s restaurant chain was forced to close about 50 of its restaurants due to a shortage of its famous peri-peri chicken. This week, Greggs, a coffee and lunch café, and coffee chain Costa were the latest to suffer product shortages due to supply chain disruptions.
Delivery problems are forcing other companies to sort through what they sell. McDonald’s removed milkshakes and bottled drinks from the menu this week, allowing it to focus on serving burgers and fries.
Mr McKenzie said British shoppers should expect to see more companies reducing their product choices and prioritizing best-selling goods.
In some cases, the disruption has been exacerbated by staff shortages. A major British poultry production company, 2 Sisters Food Group, said that Britain’s exit from the European Union contributed to a decline in its workforce by 15 percent this year. The British Meat Processors Association recently warned that companies are six weeks behind their Christmas production schedules, almost guaranteeing shortages of popular holiday items.
The group also said its problems were made more serious by retailers taking truck drivers’ pay bonuses.
Iceland, a large supermarket chain, is sounding the alarm about Christmas. She said retailers should be building their inventory starting in September, but instead, shelves are now empty. Richard Walker, managing director, said the company was missing 100 full-time drivers.
“This impacts the food supply chain on a daily basis,” Walker told the BBC. “We canceled deliveries for the first time since the pandemic started — about 30 to 40 deliveries a day.”
The United States is also facing a shortage of truck drivers; The crisis is similar in that it took years, as trucking companies failed to attract younger workers. In Britain, the average age of a truck driver is around 50 years. Six years ago, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport said that only 2% of drivers were under 25, and that by 2022, the industry would need 1.2 million more. Workers.
Then, after the 2016 Brexit referendum, the value of the British pound fell, making it less profitable for continental Europeans – including truck drivers – to work in Britain, prompting some to return to their home countries. This trend was exacerbated by the pandemic, when many wanted to be closer to their families.
When Britain took the final step to leave the European Union at the end of last year, it meant that drivers from mainland Europe could no longer be employed quickly and easily in Britain.
“Until December, there was no labor shortage at all, because as soon as there was a sign of a shortage, the company could talk to its agency in Poland or elsewhere and get them to send some people,” David Hennig said. Trade expert at the European Center for International Political Economy, a research institute.
Likewise, Brexit has complicated the task of British drivers undertaking international journeys due to… New papers needed to transport loads to countries including France, the Netherlands and Ireland.
More hurdles will come when Britain begins implementing controls on food and other goods coming into the country from mainland Europe later this year (so far, these controls have only been implemented on goods exported to the EU).
Britain’s transport and logistics industries have appealed to the government to ease restrictions on visas for drivers from the European Union. Logistics UK, a trade group, is asking the government to create 10,000 seasonal visas (similar to a program for farm workers) for drivers.
To ease the shortage, the government has increased the number of hours drivers can work each day, and proposed initiatives to recruit new drivers, but has resisted pressure to relax visa rules for European truck drivers.
“I don’t think the government wants to go there: if they give concessions to truck drivers, there will be other requests that will follow,” Hennig said. There is little political pressure to concede because the opposition Labor Party, which is trying to win over pro-Brexit voters, is cautious in criticizing Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.
Efforts to fill those jobs with new British drivers have faltered because for much of last year, pandemic lockdowns prevented driving tests. The Road Haulage Association estimates that as many as 40,000 tests have not been carried out. It takes up to six months to train a new driver.
Employers responded by increasing wages and offering signing bonuses. Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, is offering £1,000 bonuses to drivers who join before the end of September as well as further pay rises for a further six months.
“It’s definitely an undervalued profession,” both in terms of pay and recognition for its crucial role in providing necessities and the stress of doing the job safely, said Alex Veitch, managing director of public policy at Logistics UK. “This has to change.”
Working conditions were also the focus of complaints among drivers. The job requires long, sometimes lonely hours, and it can be difficult to find safe parking spaces and rest stops for truck drivers. The challenges for lorry drivers were stark last year when thousands of drivers in southern England spent Christmas camping out in front of their lorries after the French government closed the border in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of coronavirus. Then it took days to clear the backlog.
The Road Haulage Association’s Mr McKenzie joined others in predicting that problems would continue to disrupt Christmas deliveries. The problem shows no signs of abating.
“It’s getting worse,” Mr MacKenzie said. “No doubt, no doubt. It’s getting worse every week.”
