UK wholesale food industry It warns that it cannot protect consumers forever from rising prices because they face soaring transportation costs and have to spend extra money on incentives to attract new workers.
It comes from the cost of the product, such as tomato It has almost doubled in the past year, while vegetable oil prices are at a 30-year high. The wholesale price of a kilo of tomatoes is now 1.47 pounds, compared with 75 pence a year ago.
Darren Labbett, managing director of Woods Foodservice, said that wholesale companies are doing their best to reduce the pressure of rising costs, but cannot continue to absorb these costs. Woods Foodservice is a wholesaler that supplies the bar and restaurant trade. He said the industry is facing a “perfect storm” of adverse effects.
“We are doing our best to absorb as much growth as possible, but we and the rest of the supply chain cannot absorb these price increases forever,” Rabet told BBC Radio 4’s Today program. “Vegetable oil is now at the highest price in more than 30 years.
“We are also taking other actions, which is to order more inventory in advance and carry more inventory than we usually carry. We have doubled the delivery time to ensure that if any Delays will not affect the availability of our customers.”
However, Labbett stated that it cannot store fresh produce due to its short shelf life.
The food industry reported General lack of staff – Including fruit and vegetable pickers, meat processors and HGV drivers – Covid-19 and Brexit have exacerbated shortages.
James Bielby, chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, said companies have to offer higher salaries or join bonuses to attract new employees.
“Across the supply chain, there are currently 500,000 job vacancies. There is a real wage increase, which will cause food prices to rise,” Billby said. “Labor shortage means that you have to pay more salaries specifically to drivers, and this will be passed on.”
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At the same time, the food wholesale industry is preparing for the busiest two weeks of the year, as students are returning to school, employees are returning to their workplaces, and the food service department is ordering large quantities of produce to feed them.
The warning of imminent increase in food prices was issued a few days later in the food and beverage industry Appeal to the government Introduce the “Covid-19 Reinstatement Visa” to recruit overseas workers to ease the disruption of the food supply chain.
“In the medium term, it is a good idea to train more British people, but it is not a short-term solution,” Billby said.
“There is a shortage of skills. Just paying more money may not solve the problem; that is moving the recliner instead of putting people on the recliner. The skills gap needs to be filled. You can’t just spend money to hire people to be a meat processor. This is a technology. For sex work, you need qualifications.”
