Supermarket shelves could be empty for months amid a lack of hauliers and soaring global gas demand, the Prime Minister has warned today.
Food shortages mean that shoppers could be faced with problems in the run up to Christmas.
Boris Johnson admitted the food sector was struggling as the world begins to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, the Mirror reports.
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He claimed the problems would be temporary, but was unable to rule out shortages lasting for months - potentially causing chaos for the festive season.
Ahead of his arrival in the United States, the PM told reporters on his plane: "We’re experiencing bottlenecks in all kinds of things as the world wakes up from Covid.
"It’s like everybody going back to put the kettle on at the end of a TV programme, you’re seeing huge stresses on the world supply systems.
"But you’re also seeing businesses bouncing back strongly."
He added: "It is fundamentally caused by the global economy coming to life again.
"The guy ropes are pinging off Gulliver and it’s standing up, and it’s going to take a while, as it were, for the circulation to adjust.”
Asked whether that could take months, he replied: “It could be faster than that, it could be much faster than that.
"But there are problems as you know with shipping, with containers, with staff – there are all sorts of problems.
"But then these are problems that affect the entire world. I think market forces will be very very swift in sorting it out."
Government ministers have been at pains to distance the supply chain problems from new post-Brexit checks imposed at the border with the European Union.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has been locked in urgent meetings with energy company bosses in the wake of surging gas prices.
But Mr Johnson said: "As the world economy starts firing on cylinders — to use a hydrocarbon metaphor — things will start to smooth out.
"I have no doubt that supply issues will be readily addressed. We’re very confident in our supply chains.
"But in the meantime, we will make sure we work with all the gas companies to do whatever we can to keep people’s supplies coming, to make sure they don’t go out for business, and to make sure we get through the current difficult period."
