Chip shops feel the heat after Mars bar supply runs low

A SHORTAGE of Mars bars has led to empty supermarket shelves and hit Scottish chip shops that serve the chocolate treat deep-fried in batter.

Retailers have warned of weeks-long shortages as Mars Wrigley, the company behind Mars, Snickers, Bounty and Twix bars, said it was “experiencing high levels of demand”.

“Out of stock” messages have also appeared on supermarket websites with reports of food wholesalers also experiencing shortages.

Joe Andreucci, owner of the Clam Shell takeaway on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, said: “We buy from cash and carry wholesalers and we currently have no stock today because we couldn’t get them.

“We think there is a shortage.” Multi-packs of Mars, Snickers and Twix were unavailable on the Tesco website last night, although it did stock single bars.

Only single bars of Mars could be bought on Asda’s website while Waitrose, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s were fully stocked on their Mars products.

Asked about the shortages, one retailer told The Guardian: “[It] looks like a production issue on Mars’s end may be causing gaps across retailers”.

However, a spokesman for Mars

Wrigley said: “We are experiencing high levels of demand on a number of our treats.

“We are producing significant quantities and want to reassure the British public that our much-loved brands are still available nationwide.”

The company says on its website that “we can make nearly three million bars a day” at its factory in Slough, Berkshire, where the first bars were made by hand in 1932.

Nestlé, which makes Kitkats and

‘We buy from cash and carry wholesalers and we have no stock today because we couldn’t get them’

other chocolate brands, has blamed “significant and unprecedented cost inflation” for a 6.5 per cent rise in prices in the first half of this year.

Photos of a sticker left on an empty shelf in a Tesco in Walthamstow, northeast London, said that the next delivery was expected on Sept 10.

Another Tesco in Camden, also in the north the capital, had sold out of Snickers Duo, while white chocolate Twix bars were out of stock until an expected delivery date of Sept 9.

Tesco declined to comment.