After the pandemic had been taking control of normal people’s lives and also last year’s Christmas, people could not hide their expectations any longer for Christmas this year.
Meanwhile, fuel shortages and global supply chain issues also warned people to prepare for Christmas earlier than normal circumstances in case of potential shortages.
These kinds of problems also take place in Sheffield.
“We didn’t really face any food shortage in the past years, but we are afraid that it might happen this Christmas, so we have already filled our stock in advance last week.” said King Yun To, waiter of Smitten Cafe on West Street.
Things are a little different in different places. Owner of Devonshire Chippy told Sheffield Wire:“We are struggling to get some fish now, because as well the Christmas day coming, it becomes a little bit harder to find our stock…
“Stuff we have to buy every day like chicken and fish, we need them fresh, so that’s the only thing we are sometimes struggling to find.”
There is only two weeks until Christmas and is there anything going to go missing on people’s Christmas dinner table?
Turkey
Turkey suppliers warned in October that we could face a national shortage due to a lack of farm labourers: The UK is no longer free to hire as many workers as it desires, after free immigration ended with Brexit; and that visa changes to allow recruitment from abroad have come too late.
According to The British Poultry Council, Christmas turkey production has dropped by 20% because of staff shortages.
Richard Griffiths, Chief Executive of the British Poultry Council, said: “It would be irresponsible to grow more birds than can be slaughtered and processed, which is incredibly frustrating when the demand is there for quality British products.”
At the same time, Grocery chain Iceland said that sales of frozen turkey are up by 409% than last year and mince pie sales are up 10% due to people preparing Christmas earlier.
The Traditional Farmfresh Turkey Association reported that throughout Autumn, Christmas turkey orders have been six weeks ahead of normal.
Chairwoman Kate Martin has said: “November is usually when turkey farmers see Christmas orders coming in, but orders this year began as early as August and many of our members were nearly sold out by the end.”
Pineapple juice
Juice brand Robinsons has confirmed a shortage of pineapple juice.
A spokeswoman for the brand’s owner Britvic told The Grocer this week of the issue, which was impacting production of Robinsons Orange & Pineapple squash.
“Unfortunately, we are currently experiencing a shortage of pineapple juice, which has had a limited impact on the production of our Robinsons Orange & Pineapple squash,” she said.
Stocks of Pineapple Juice Concentrate (PJC) diminished fast in every point of the supply chain in Europe and the US this november, according to Prime Products Industry Co., which provide the customers with pineapple products.
This might be the cause of this shortage of pineapple juice.
Crisps
Walkers apologised recently for the continuing shortages of its crisps.
Products from ready salted crisps to Quavers have been affected by a problem with an IT system upgrade.
The shortage began since November and seems not going to end during Christmas.
Wine and spirit
The Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) said that rising costs and supply chain chaos had held up deliveries.
It takes up to five times longer to finish the imports now than a year ago due to the shortage of HGV drivers.
In November, a group of 48 wine and spirits companies told the transport secretary, Britain was facing a Christmas alcohol shortage unless the government did more to address the lack of HGV drivers.
