Food and beverage firms are facing a “terrible” increase in costs amid labor shortages and supply chain shortages, lawmakers have warned.
Food and Drink Federation chief executive Ian Wright told the BEIS committee that lawmakers need to think seriously about inflation.
“Inflation in hospitality is running between 14 per cent and 18 per cent, which is appalling.
“If the prime minister, as I know him, is serious about raising the bar, inflation is a bigger curse than almost anything because it discriminates against the poor.”
Mr Wright said that although there is some shortage on the shelves, Britain has enough food.
He said: “We are not running out of food, but there are some shortages, we have seen some problems with pigs and poultry, some of which have been resolved.”
Duncan Buchanan, director of policy at the Road Haulage Association, said the shortage of lorry drivers was “clearly not getting better” and believed it would be a year before the disruption caused by gaps on supermarket shelves ends. has gone.
He told the committee that there had been “a lot of victimization of drivers” by large companies offering pay increases of 10 or 20 percent. Buchanan said changes made by the government last week to the so-called cabotage rules were likely to suppress those pay increases, Mr. Buchanan said.
The move means foreign drivers, who were limited to two drop-offs per trip, can now make an unlimited number of stops.
“We expect cabotage changes to suppress wages. The same people who are going to take advantage of those changes are the people who are paying the highest wages at the moment and are poaching.”
Mr Buchanan said most of the challenges in the supply chain are falling on businesses, not consumers. “We don’t really have food shortages, we have supply chain disruptions but that doesn’t mean we’ll run out of food, or anything in particular.”
The Committee also heard that the labor shortage was particularly acute in the UK compared to other countries. Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said problems in the UK were “distinctly sharp”.
“We have some long-term shortage issues that we haven’t addressed. The drivers collectively are a classic example of something we’ve been talking about with the government for a long time. [EU] Referendum.”
“But clearly we have also cut the influx of workers into the UK and over time the number of workers with settled conditions will decrease.”
Mr Carberry said care, food and waste disposal were among the sectors that would be most affected
“I think what we are seeing is a global issue caused by the misallocation of resources due to the pandemic that is being exacerbated by the new business regime we are working under. It will probably take a little longer to do.”
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Credit: www.independent.co.uk /
