Supermarket giant Morrisons today warned the chronic lorry driver shortages would lead to price rises.
It joined others in saying that higher wages to tackle the shortfall were set to be passed on across the industry.
Morrisons added that the higher prices were also caused by other costs going up, including shipping and raw materials.
It came as Transport secretary Grant Shapps today rejected calls for more immigration to resolve the dirver shortage.
He said: “We have to stand on our own two feet as the United Kingdom.
“There are a lot of people coming off furlough.
“I look forward to them getting jobs.”
The estimated 100,000 shortfall in lorry drivers has been blamed on EU workers leaving the UK after Brexit, a key tax change and the Covid crisis delaying training.
Mr Shapps said: “To say this is an issue of Brexit is completely untrue.
“What it is about is coronavirus.”
He added that the global driver shortage was also impacting the US, Poland and Germany.
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However, Mr Shapps confirmed that some HGV driver tests would be fast-tracked.
Bradford-based Morrisons said its prices fell, year-on-year, over the past six months as a whole.
But it added: “By the end of the period these industry-wide price and cost increases had become sustained, meaning deflation had transitioned to slight inflation, and we now expect these pressures to persist during the second half.”
Morrisons claimed it was better placed than many to absorb its cost hikes because it made a lot of its own products.
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The supermarket, unlike many retailers, has not opted to pay lorry drivers “golden hellos” and retention bonuses.
It has, however, offered staff the chance to retrain.
Around 1,500 workers have signed-up to do so, including shelf-stakers and check-out assistants.
It came amid evidence that the driver shortages are driving some hauliers out of business.
Mazars, an audit, tax and advisory firm, said 31 haulage firms were declared insolvent in June, the highest in a single month since January 2019.
The fall in shipments between the UK and EU, and Britain and Northern Ireland, since Brexit has also seen revenues fall, it said.
Rebecca Dacre, a partner at Mazars, says, “Brexit has hit the logistics industry very hard.
“Combined with the effects of the pandemic, we’re starting to see an acceleration in haulage companies going out of business.”
Elsewhere, regulator Ofgem has said energy bills will be affected by soaring prices of fossil fuels globally.
It told the BBC that increasing prices, for gas in particular, “will feed into all customer energy bills in the UK”.
Ofgem has already announced a price cap for 15 million households will rise from October due to higher wholesale costs.
Customers on standard tariff and other default tariffs are likely to see their bills jump by £139 a year.
Prepayment customers, meanwhile, will see an increase of £153.
