We are less than 100 days away from Christmas and Britain is about to be hit by a “national crisis” amid a lack of CO2 and rising gas prices. Due to Brexit, the UK continues to face a shortage of staff across sectors, especially in the food industry where the dearth of lorry drivers has led to a shortage of meat products at stores.
Ocado has paused its delivery of frozen products due to a shortage of dry ice. The British Poultry Council has also wanted that we are heading into a “downward spiral towards supply chains seriously struggling.”
Ranjit Singh Boparan, owner of Bernard Matthews and 2 Sisters Food Group told The Independent, “The supply of Bernard Matthews turkeys this Christmas was already compromised as I need to find 1,000 extra workers to process supplies. Now with no CO2 supply, Christmas will be cancelled.”
“This is clearly a national security issue and unlike the labour supply crisis, where the government response to our sector has been disappointing, to say the least, it has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency,” Boparan added.
Meanwhile, The COP26 President Alok Sharma has been quoted by the media, saying, there was "no immediate concerns" over the UK's gas supplies despite soaring wholesale energy costs.
With this, a larger crisis prevails. Economists had expected sales to climb by 0.5% but instead, they fell by 0.9%, partly blamed on a shift in spending to eating and drinking at restaurants and bars. The 0.9% decline in sales volumes in August followed a downwardly revised slump of 2.8% in July, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - and was the fourth month in a row of decline. The ONS report data also showed that during August, 6.5% of businesses in the retail industry were unable to get the materials, goods or services they needed.
Asian Voice reached out to Asian community in the UK to understand their assessment of the situation and what lies ahead for business owners.
Speaking to the newsweekly, Cllr Krupesh Hirani, London Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow, said, “It is really promising to see Harrow Town Centre buck the trend and show some green shoots of recovery in recent months. Sadly, many other areas of the capital are really struggling, with London stuck at the bottom of the table nationally when it comes to high street footfall. What we’ve recently learned from the London Assembly Economy Committee is that there is not a set pattern or one underlying factor behind why some high streets a recovering faster than others. I think what we need right now is a tailored extension of the furlough scheme beyond the end of this month for sectors that are struggling to get back to normal, such as travel and tourism businesses. I am also concerned about the impact of staff shortages and supply chain disruption on Asian businesses, particularly in the food and hospitality industry. We now need the Government to remedy this by relaxing post-Brexit immigration rules so we can at least in the short-term have enough workers in the industries that need them.”
Damian Patel of Toy Galaxy told us, “Since the high streets began reopening, there were strong indicators of potential growth which sent a lot of positivity across high streets around the country and with business owners alike. The reality has been far different and the growth has not been close to the level we were expecting. Many factors are influencing this such as consumer confidence in public places still being low. Where measures such as social distancing and wearing of masks have eased, it has also stopped many people from venturing out. External factors such as shipping costs, raw material prices increasing and shortages on the stock have all had an impact on our trade which in turn has increased costs. This as a high street retailer is always harder to absorb and sustain in comparison to online traders where we find a large majority of our competition now comes from.”
A spokesperson for Spice Kitchen commented on the spending priorities of the citizens and told Asian Voice, “As an e-Commerce business, we've seen lots of fluctuations since Covid regarding sales, particularly at the start of the first lockdown when people shopped online exclusively and many of our customers were excited to cook from scratch with their families. Our sales really spiked at this point. Things levelled off throughout the summer as restrictions eased and especially when the high streets opened up, I think the novelty of being able to go back to the shops meant that eCommerce quietened for a little while. We've now seen things balance off. Will be interesting to see what happens if there is a winter lockdown to coincide with Christmas as this could be very busy for us again.”
Meanwhile, before leaving for his US trip, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the media, "We’re experiencing bottlenecks in all kinds of things as the world wakes up from Covid. It’s like everybody going back to put the kettle on at the end of a TV programme, you’re seeing huge stresses on the world supply systems. But you’re also seeing businesses bouncing back strongly. It is fundamentally caused by the global economy coming to life again. The guy ropes are pinging off Gulliver and it’s standing up, and it’s going to take a while, as it were, for the circulation to adjust.”
