The owner of the UK's biggest poultry supplier has warned consumers to get used to higher prices – with chicken among products it claims are ‘too cheap’ in the UK.
Ranjit Singh Boparan, the owner of Bernard Matthews and 2 Sisters Food Group, said the cost of chicken is expected to rise by more than 10% in response to supply chain issues.
He called for a "reset" on pricing and said the industry needs to be more transparent to reflect the true cost of producing food.
"How can it be right that a whole chicken costs less than a pint of beer? You're looking at a different world where the shopper pays more," the businessman said yesterday.
Chicken is the most popular meat consumed in the UK, and the cost of producing it has risen exponentially in the past year, he added.
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Boparan, whose business processes 10million birds a week, said labour shortages and commodity price rises would mean less choice and higher prices.
He said inflation was "decaying the food sector's supply chain" and that the government could not fix the problem.
"The days when you could feed a family of four with a £3 chicken are coming to an end. We need transparent, honest pricing. This is a reset and we need to spell out what this will mean," he said.
"Food is too cheap,” he said, adding that the current £3 price point for chicken is “unsustainable”.
“In relative terms, a chicken today is cheaper to buy than it was 20 years ago."
The group's 600 farms and 16 factories, which employ 18,000 people, are facing soaring energy costs, which Boparan said had risen 450%-550% on last year.
He said wages were up 15%, as were feed costs for the poultry, while other inputs, including diet supplements, wood shavings for litter, disinfectants and veterinary costs, had risen by as much as 20%.
Alongside wage increases for HGV drivers, who are currently in short supply, fuel costs are now at their highest rate since 2013.
"Inflation is decaying the food sector's supply chain infrastructure and its ability to operate as normal. That's from farm to your plate," said Boparan.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain's economy must kick its addiction to cheap imported labour and that it is positive that wages will have to go up.
Johnson's government has denied that Brexit is responsible for the strains on the economy, though no other European economies have faced the same scale of supply chain disruption.
"I feel confident that there will be good provision of goods for everybody, and we are working our way to remove blockages where we can," Chancellor Rishi Sunak said.
