After the government refused to provide the latest efforts to address the shortage of HGV drivers, alcoholic beverage companies issued new warnings that the supply of Christmas wine, spirits and beer may be interrupted.
In an exchange in the House of Commons, Trade Minister Ranil Jayawardena (Ranil Jayawardena) was asked how many 5,000 temporary visas Exclusively for non-UK drivers.
The shadow trade minister Bill Esterson described Jayawardena’s refusal to provide the latest news as “extraordinary” and said the government was in danger of “cancelling Christmas celebrations.”
Labour Party MP quoted A letter to the Secretary of Transportation Grant Sharps last week, 48 companies including Pernod Ricard, Moet Hennessy and the Wine Association expressed their Supply chain “chaos” Increased the risk of late delivery of supermarket dry goods and holiday delivery.
The beverage company told the Guardian that this situation resulted in additional costs and delays.
The customers of Kingsland Drinks, a supplier of wine and spirits, include large supermarket chains, which fill about 185 million bottles of wine each year, and about one in eight people in the UK have drunk.
Its managing director, Ed Baker, said that as it is preparing for the busy Christmas period, the shortage of drivers is slowing the company’s supply chain.
“At this time of the year, our business trades 2.5 million to 3 million litres of wine per week, most of which are shipped in bulk containers to British ports, and then to our railway hub near Manchester or the port of Liverpool by rail,” he said. Said.
“The HGV driver then transports the container with the liquid wine to our factory and is used to ship the finished product to our customers, including large supermarkets. We work with others in the wine and spirits industry in the process Encountered obstacles.”
Baker said the nationwide supply chain deadlock has resulted in high demand for container space in railway hubs.
“We usually hope to have 80 to 100 storage tank spaces, but currently we can reduce it to 10 to 20,” he said. “This limits the amount of liquid entering our factory, and there is also a shortage of HGV drivers. Driver surcharges will push up costs. If the products are late, it may cause some holiday drinks to not be on the supermarket shelves at Christmas.”
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Sam McMeekin, the founder of the Gypsy Hill Brewery in southeast London, said the company is facing a blow due to concerns about the Covid-19 variant of Omicron, and a shortage of drivers is increasing his costs, which discourages some people. From bars, especially in the city center, because of the increase in work from home.
“We finally managed to hire our own HGV drivers to internalize these costs in order to save on the soaring cost of outsourcing,” he said. “Therefore, the only impact on us is the continued long delivery time and the lack of any flexibility in the market.”
However, Majestic, the UK’s largest wine merchant, insisted last week that “our shelves will remain full.”
