Lorry driver crisis hits food supplies

SHOPPERS face sporadic shortage of food and other items as dearth of lorry drivers hamper restocking by supermarkets, The Times reported.

Thousands of deliveries are being delayed or cancelled every week because of the shortages, forcing supermarkets to throw away tonnes of rotting food.

According to transport industry, the “escalating crisis” will hit fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, cheese and other chilled products. Prices of these products could also rise as wages of lorry drivers are pushed higher.

Some transport companies have even started paying drivers a signing-on bonus, the newspaper said.

There is a shortage of 100,000 drivers, according to the Road Haulage Association.

Recently, more than 20 organisations wrote to prime minister Boris Johnson to highlight the gravity of the situation.

“We are urgently writing to ask for your personal intervention to help resolve the significant and rapidly deteriorating shortage of HGV drivers,” they wrote.

They further said that intervention was needed to “avert critical supply chains failing at an unprecedented and unimaginable level.”

Some in the industry believe driver shortages could get so bad that the army may be needed to deliver food.

The transport industry blamed Brexit and a lack of driver training and testing during the pandemic for drivers’ shortage. Brexit led to an exodus of European drivers and tax changes, which increased costs.

It has also urged the government to temporarily add HGV drivers to its skilled worker shortage list to attract workers from abroad.

Meanwhile, supermarket chain Tesco admitted that it is losing nearly 50 tonnes of food a week because of driver shortages.

The British Retail Consortium said that supermarkets were “working with suppliers to ensure that consumers still have the same great selection of fresh produce”.