The British Poultry Council stated that food producers are facing severe staff shortages due to Brexit due to partial closures this week Nando’s chain Focus on issues that have become worse due to the impact of Covid.
The trade association stated that its members (including the UK’s largest supermarket chicken supplier 2 Sisters Food Group) stated that one-sixth of the jobs were vacant after EU workers left the UK. Brexit.
already have Warning of a shortage of turkeys this Christmas Due to shortages of delivery drivers, slaughterhouse employees and other workers, wages and other costs have risen.
Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, said that the organization had sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior Priti Patel this month asking the government to Relaxation of immigration rules But no reply has been received yet.
KFC said last week that supply chain issues are disrupting their nationwide food and packaging inventories. Due to a chronic shortage of heavy truck drivers, supermarkets have also been struggling to fill up their shelves.
“We have seen employee turnover throughout the supply chain, especially in our member companies,” Griffiths said. “As a direct result of the restrictive immigration policy, our members currently report a vacancy rate as high as 16%. We ask the government to relax these vacancies and focus on skills and development.”
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In July, Ranjit Singh Boparan, the billionaire founder of 2 Sisters, stated that “epidemics”-forcing a large number of healthy workers to self-isolate after being “tested” by the NHS -It just covers up an industry that is already at a crisis point due to labor shortages related to Brexit.
Of its 16,000 employees, most of them work in its chicken and ready-to-eat food production facilities, and 15% of them are vacant. 2 Sisters stated that Brexit “severely reduces the number of available workers in the entire food industry” and entry-level jobs are the most difficult to fill. He said the company is also struggling to cope with soaring raw material costs, rising wages and Covid-related absenteeism.
“Critical labor issues alone mean that we are currently walking a tightrope every week,” said Bopalan, who warned that without the help of the government, food waste will surge “just because it cannot be processed or delivered.”
The British Poultry Council said that raising wages to attract domestic workers is not the answer. Griffith said the industry’s experience in recent years is “there is no such willingness and availability in the British workforce”.
“We do business in areas where employment rates are generally high, so there is a shortage of labor in the UK,” he told the BBC, pointing to staff problems in the hotel industry and the chronic shortage of HGV drivers.
“We are only part of the supply chain, which affects everyone. We are not alone. This is a big problem that needs to be solved by the entire industry, and the government needs to recognize this problem.”
