A wine rack hits the tracks
UK businesses seek solutions to shortages as government works to ‘save Christmas’
TILBURY, England — It is called the “wine train,” and every weekend it rumbles out of the port of Tilbury, east of London, on a 100-mile journey to a depot in central England. It looks pretty much like any other freight train, but it carries an unusual cargo: almost 650,000 bottles of wine.
This 32-car, 1,600-foot-long traveling wine rack is the latest, and one of the more creative, answers to the supply shortages that have bedeviled Britain and caused the government to fret about disruptions to the Christmas holiday.
On Saturday night, in biting winds and rain, a small team of workers toiled beneath floodlights, using giant machinery to lift heavy containers filled with wine into place. The train would deliver it to a terminal in Daventry, from where it will be distributed to some of the country’s leading supermarkets.
The wine train has been running from this busy port for a month or so, reducing the reliance on truck drivers, who have been in short supply in Britain, and ensuring that Britons will at least have a decent stock of alcohol during the holiday.
But two months after gas and food shortages caused shudders of anxiety across the country, Britain still faces challenges in its supply chain. A lack of truck drivers, combined with global shipping delays, product shortages, the pandemic and Brexit restrictions, have left some supermarket shelves bare and retailers warning that not every Christmas gift will be available.
The worries about the holiday season have only been worsened by the discovery of three cases of the new coronavirus variant in Britain. On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that masks would be mandatory in shops and on public transportation and that travelers arriving from abroad would face some new rules.
But he said he was confident that Christmas would be “considerably better” than last year. Businesses including toy shops, coffee shops and butchers report being short-staffed, and 7 in 10 have reported differences in food shopping, including finding less variety in stores, according to government data released last week. Shortages are patchwork and random across the country, adding to the guesswork.
On Nov. 24, the Cold Chain Federation, which represents firms that store and distribute frozen food, warned that consumers could have fewer choices this Christmas.
Amid continuing disruption, the government says that it is determined to “save Christmas” — as some British newspapers have put it. On Nov. 23, one senior minister, Stephen Barclay, assured colleagues at a Cabinet meeting that there would be enough turkeys for festive dinners. That was in doubt just weeks ago when farmers were warning of shortages.
Wine distributors are not the only ones getting creative to ensure that their products reach customers for the holidays. One supermarket chain, Tesco, has started using a rail service running from Valencia, Spain, through France, to Barking, near London, to transport lettuce, fruit and vegetables.
Tesco also transports supplies on the giant wine train. And Freightliner, the company that runs the train, said in a statement that it was receiving more inquiries to move goods by rail — because of the trucker shortage and a desire to decarbonize the transportation of goods.