Iceland supermarket has warned that ongoing driver shortages could ‘cancel Christmas’ as stores continue to suffer from empty shelves.
All major supermarkets, including frozen food giant Iceland, have reported suffering from a lack of stock due to staff shortages in the delivery chain.
Iceland’s managing director Richard Walker said that the current issues could result in shortages of food during the festive period.
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Speaking to the BBC, he said: “We’ve had deliveries cancelled for the first time since the pandemic began, about 30-40 deliveries a day.
“Things like bread, fast-moving lines, are being cancelled in about 100 stores a day.
Mr Walker warned that the current problems will soon begin to affect how much stock stores will have for the Christmas period, as supermarkets begin to build stock for the festive months from September onwards.
He added said: “We’ve got a lot of goods to transport between now and Christmas and a strong supply chain is vital for everyone.
“The reason for sounding the alarm now is that we’ve already had one Christmas cancelled at the last minute and I’d hate this one to be problematic as well.”
The frozen food boss urged the government to add heavy goods vehicle drivers to the UK’s skilled workers list, to help get drivers recruited from overseas.
The shortages have occurred as the food industry is being hit by a shortage of around 100,000 HGV drivers due to the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit.
A backlog of HGV driver tests, linked to the pandemic, is also having an impact on the number of drivers available, playing its part in the perfect storm of issues for the food industry
Iceland says it is down by around 100 drivers and last month announced plans to recruit an extra 2,000 staff to help stop the shortages.
Tesco chairman John Allan has urged people not to begin stockpiling products, in a bid to ensure there is no repeat of the scenes of bare shelves across the country, from the beginning of the pandemic last year.
He said: "It's very easy to make a drama out of a modest crisis,"
The Tesco boss added: "There may be some shortages," but people should not "over-dramatise" and panic-buy.
Several supermarkets have pledged to hire significant numbers of new staff in the coming weeks to help get past the crisis. This included the Co-op who have announced plans to hire 3,000 extra workers.
