Food firm is taking ‘drastic’ action amid driver shortage

A company which supplies food to care homes and restaurants is taking “drastic action” to try to get round the shortage of UK lorry drivers

The boss of Country Range said that the food group was buying smaller vans in the face of “significant” problems that are caused by a lack of qualified HGV drivers in the country.

Managing director Coral Rose said that the issue was “going to get worse” as schools and offices return to normal.

Industry warnings about the impact of lorry driver shortages have been increasing.

On Wednesday, both Tesco and Iceland said there could be some shortages on the shelves in the run up to the key Christmas trading period.

A combination of the coronavirus, Brexit and other factors has meant that there are not enough drivers to meet demand.

The Road Haulage Association estimates that there is now a shortage of over 100,000 drivers in the UK, out of a pre-pandemic total of about 600,000.

This comes after according to a senior British source, there is a “very high risk of a terrorist attack” against the evacuation operations by the UK and other allied forces in Kabul. The kind of attack that this group is known for conducting is suicide bombings such as car bombing or individuals blowing themselves up.

That number had included tens of thousands of drivers from the EU who were living and working within the UK. Even before Covid, the estimated shortage was around 60,000 drivers.

Country Range is a group of 12 wholesalers that supply food and non-food items to schools, care homes, hotels and restaurants, as well as small shops.

Ms Rose said that the shortage of drivers had affected both the supply of products from manufacturers to its warehouses and also from its warehouses to its customers.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme, Ms Rose said Country Range was “taking drastic action such as buying smaller delivery vehicles to make sure that we don’t have to have people with specific HGV licences to drive them”.

There was “going to be increased pressure as schools reopen, people continue to holiday in the UK, people return back to their offices, so staff feeding may reopen again, so the issue is going to get worse and we would like government intervention”, she added.

One short-term fix the government could take would be to a temporary visa scheme “to encourage EU workers to come back”, she said.

But she wants the government to give support for people with training and apprenticeships in the longer term “because this is not a quick fix, it’s a long-term issue”.

Ms Rose also said: “There’s lot of drivers who are able to drive but can’t go on the road at the moment because they couldn’t take their tests or refresher course and training through the last year because of Covid, so there’s potential to release a lot more drivers. There could be some increased resource in that area as well and that would help.”

This comes after young people in Scotland under the age of 26 are now eligible for free NHS dental care treatment. The free dental care service will also cover those who had started a longer NHS course of treatment before their 26th birthday.

On Wednesday, the government said there was a “highly resilient” food supply chain and it was taking measures to tackle the driver shortage.

Labour’s shadow minister for business and consumers, Seema Malhotra, said: “The chaos hitting supply chains is of the Conservatives’ making. 

Their failure to keep their promise to cut red tape for businesses, which are struggling with more paperwork and higher costs, combined with worker shortages, has created a perfect storm.”