Food industry warns MPs of staffing crisis
FOOD and hospitality bosses have warned MPs that there are “no guarantees” over Christmas deliveries and raised concerns about “acute” warehouse staffing issues ahead of the key festive period.
It came as members of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee questioned industry bosses over the impact of current labour shortages in the food sector and supply chain.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UKHospitality, told MPs that the UK’s hospitality sector is currently seeing 10% vacancy rates, representing a shortage of around 200,000 staff across the UK.
She said firms in the sector have been hit by a “double whammy” of staff shortages within their own venues as well as shortages within their supply chains.
Ms Nicholls said this means hospitality operators will struggle to provide customers with the service they “would like” over the Christmas period.
“I don’t think we can give the hospitality we would like to around Christmas because we would like to be operating at full strength and full capacity and not turning away business,” she said.
“In our supply chain, we are getting around 80% fulfilment. So 20% of all products in all deliveries are not being delivered and we can’t really say what it is. Our supply chain cannot give us any guarantees at the moment about Christmas deliveries and that everything will be delivered at the right place, at the right time and at the right price.”
Meanwhile, Tom Southall, policy director at the Cold Chain Federation, warned that warehouse staff shortages are a cause of concern ahead of Christmas.
“It is particularly in warehousing that we are concerned about at the moment,” he said.
“We are having reports from members that warehousing is becoming quite an acute issue in the run-up to Christmas.”
Speaking to the committee, Mr Southall also said he was not aware of any cold storage firms which have been contacted by the Government since it pledged to fund cold storage for meat in recent weeks.