Supermarket shortages
Discussion
speedyguy said:
PH4555 said:
while bottom-feeders like Moran and Stobart can't pay the market rates and still turn a profit because they were all in a race to the bottom with each other to win contracts, so they go crying to the government wanting subsidises
They just have to trim their lifestyles then. I'm sure Mr Stobart can lose the helicopter and polo pitch/team and country estate and still pay the drivers from the money he made off the ball of them? Rather than being subsidised.I like the Swiss model for being able to work there - you have to show you're earning the same wage as a Swiss citizen would expect. That lead to a lovely six month pay rise when my then employer wanted me out there for a project!
Yes, inflation is coming - and hard. However, pay rises for drivers isn't going to be the driver (sorry!), transport driver wages are a tiny proportion of the cost base, let alone the sales price...
Biggy Stardust said:
Ever driven in London traffic? I'd suspect it would be even more unpleasant in a big HGV.
I'm sure it would be worse, but I have to say the hardest driving experience I've had in the UK (by quite some way) was in Cornwall. Although I may have been a victim of a satnav picking the 'shortest' route. 
PH4555 said:
In short, the HGV drivers can cherry-pick what work they fancy doing, what hours, what days and get a very respectable pay packet at the end of the week for the amount of effort they had to put in. No-one is going to be doing Arla or Tesco store delivery work by choice, unless they are masochists! 
Thanks for the lengthy reply!The way I see it is that those who were profit gouging are now going to pay the price and up their prices, which puts their consumers in a position of reality on prices.
And hopefully then being aware they’re now paying the ‘right’ price to make sure everyone in the chain is getting a fair deal.
Ooor, those businesses go out of it.
Those who’d been paying sensible prices and treating everyone fairly all along, are probably business as usual.
There is a lesson here that a fight to the bottom for profit and price isn’t always a virtue... even though it may feel you have to be a part of it to stay in business at all.
Which is why I try support quality and service at a higher price, over just price.
That said, Waitrose seem to now have become incapable of packing raspberries not alongside a bag of potatoes... they feel like they’re going the way of Sainsbury’s 15 years ago... a race to go cheaper and wider market and it’s hurting them.
Anyone ‘big’ is basically no good any more.
All the local shops near me (butchers, bakers, general stores, fruit and veg etc) are fine and have been all along... I’m assuming because their networks were never pared to the bone and gouged on salaries to leave them exposed to worker exodus etc.
speedyguy said:
PH4555 said:
while bottom-feeders like Moran and Stobart can't pay the market rates and still turn a profit because they were all in a race to the bottom with each other to win contracts, so they go crying to the government wanting subsidises
They just have to trim their lifestyles then. I'm sure Mr Stobart can lose the helicopter and polo pitch/team and country estate and still pay the drivers from the money he made off the ball of them? Rather than being subsidised.Mr Whippy said:
PH4555 said:
In short, the HGV drivers can cherry-pick what work they fancy doing, what hours, what days and get a very respectable pay packet at the end of the week for the amount of effort they had to put in. No-one is going to be doing Arla or Tesco store delivery work by choice, unless they are masochists!
Thanks for the lengthy reply!The way I see it is that those who were profit gouging are now going to pay the price and up their prices, which puts their consumers in a position of reality on prices.
And hopefully then being aware they’re now paying the ‘right’ price to make sure everyone in the chain is getting a fair deal.
Ooor, those businesses go out of it.
Those who’d been paying sensible prices and treating everyone fairly all along, are probably business as usual.
Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
Murph7355 said:
rscott said:
Morrisons and Lidl in Harwich, plus the Co-ops in Manningtree and Dovercourt have had quite a few empty shelves at the weekends recently.
Go West!Colchester, Haverhill, Braintree...and try Tesco and M&S
Sway said:
We both know that's not going to happen...
I like the Swiss model for being able to work there - you have to show you're earning the same wage as a Swiss citizen would expect. That lead to a lovely six month pay rise when my then employer wanted me out there for a project!
Yes, inflation is coming - and hard. However, pay rises for drivers isn't going to be the driver (sorry!), transport driver wages are a tiny proportion of the cost base, let alone the sales price...
Last mile costs are often a lot higher than you think they are. Driver wages are a not-insignificant part of that problem.I like the Swiss model for being able to work there - you have to show you're earning the same wage as a Swiss citizen would expect. That lead to a lovely six month pay rise when my then employer wanted me out there for a project!
Yes, inflation is coming - and hard. However, pay rises for drivers isn't going to be the driver (sorry!), transport driver wages are a tiny proportion of the cost base, let alone the sales price...
PH4555 said:
In theory, yes that's how it should work, but a) I don't see Moran putting the money up to the £20-25/hr needed to get enough bums on seats to make sure everyone has milk for their cornflakes and b) I don't see Moran or Arla passing those costs onto the supermarkets as historically it's the supermarket buyers who dictate what price they'll pay you, not how much you're going to change them. Moran can't absorb the increased labour costs so either Arla will have to absorb it, or take the transport back in-house themselves and absorb it, or tell Tesco the price of a pint is going to have to go up by 5p a pint (or whatever amount is needed).
Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
£20-25ph to drive a lorry?Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
60-70% above median wages?
This here is a part of the problem we have in the UK. The productivity of an HGV driver is fixed. There's no further value that can be added to that process. For all its responsibility, how can this ultimately be sustainable compared to other jobs?
Let's consider a simple foodstuff - the white baking potato. An HGV load is a maximum of 30t.
Those potatoes sell for 50p/kg. With wastage of a small 10%, and the usual offers, there's probably £400-500 of gross margin in that 30t load.
Let's assume there was 210 miles of travel in that, at an average of 30 mph + an hour's total wasted time overall. That's 8 hours. (All the driving to/from farm, processing plant, hub, store, etc. - the total "food miles" for the load).
If you increase the driver's wage by £10ph (the sort of numbers some are talking about), that's an additional £80 + contributions, pension, etc. Call it another £100. On a gross margin of £400-500 for the contents of the truck, that's a reduction in the gross margin on the product of 20-25%.
That's a huge impact, but illustrative of the very tight margins that firms such as Tesco operate to. And we have to assume the business is as margin-free as it is because the market is so extraordinarily competitive.
A lot of the businesses struggling have either relied on subbies to pull their trailers, or in the case of RDC to store delivery have relied on agencies to cover the bulk of their driver needs. Badly ran businesses are more at fault than Covid or Brexit or any other factor.
Recruiting and retention of permanent drivers is more of an issue in areas with high costs of living. Up here in the NE there is a shortage of agency drivers and a lot of C1 vacancies at small firms who have historically been poor payers or have pushed drivers close to 60 hours and dropped nights out on them at short notice.
There’s huge societal issues in a country where the price of a comparable home can more than double within a couple of hours drive. Especially when as rightly pointed out a driver can be made no more productive regardless whether they’re paid £50 or £5000 a shift. They would still be limited by laws and physics.
The people who have security of employment, know they won’t be expected to tip on break to make up time, work shifts limited to 10-12 hours per day, have a set rota and rest patterns that don’t require reducing to 9 hours or aren’t expected to spend nights in a lay by until Friday are not leaving in droves for the short term promise of riches. Despite the protestations about their pay none of our drivers have left for greener grass and I’ve taken several calls today from guys in work already who want to come and work for us doing last mile RDC to store work instead of general haulage.
Recruiting and retention of permanent drivers is more of an issue in areas with high costs of living. Up here in the NE there is a shortage of agency drivers and a lot of C1 vacancies at small firms who have historically been poor payers or have pushed drivers close to 60 hours and dropped nights out on them at short notice.
There’s huge societal issues in a country where the price of a comparable home can more than double within a couple of hours drive. Especially when as rightly pointed out a driver can be made no more productive regardless whether they’re paid £50 or £5000 a shift. They would still be limited by laws and physics.
The people who have security of employment, know they won’t be expected to tip on break to make up time, work shifts limited to 10-12 hours per day, have a set rota and rest patterns that don’t require reducing to 9 hours or aren’t expected to spend nights in a lay by until Friday are not leaving in droves for the short term promise of riches. Despite the protestations about their pay none of our drivers have left for greener grass and I’ve taken several calls today from guys in work already who want to come and work for us doing last mile RDC to store work instead of general haulage.
skwdenyer said:
PH4555 said:
In theory, yes that's how it should work, but a) I don't see Moran putting the money up to the £20-25/hr needed to get enough bums on seats to make sure everyone has milk for their cornflakes and b) I don't see Moran or Arla passing those costs onto the supermarkets as historically it's the supermarket buyers who dictate what price they'll pay you, not how much you're going to change them. Moran can't absorb the increased labour costs so either Arla will have to absorb it, or take the transport back in-house themselves and absorb it, or tell Tesco the price of a pint is going to have to go up by 5p a pint (or whatever amount is needed).
Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
£20-25ph to drive a lorry?Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
60-70% above median wages?
By comparison Arla/Moran pay £13.75/hr (or £13.25/hr via ARM agency) to bust your b
ks in town centres dragging tets of milk about with broken wheels. Now do you see why untakenname's supermarket in the middle of London town doesn't have any milk ?Which would you rather do if your local depots were the same distance from your house and the same days/hours on offer? £22/hr sat on the M1 with CC at 56mph listening to your ipod as you take 26 pallets of shrink-wrapped stuff in a curtain-sider to an RDC in Daventry or nearly half that to bust your gut doing multi-drop milk deliveries? There's your answer.
PH4555 said:
skwdenyer said:
PH4555 said:
In theory, yes that's how it should work, but a) I don't see Moran putting the money up to the £20-25/hr needed to get enough bums on seats to make sure everyone has milk for their cornflakes and b) I don't see Moran or Arla passing those costs onto the supermarkets as historically it's the supermarket buyers who dictate what price they'll pay you, not how much you're going to change them. Moran can't absorb the increased labour costs so either Arla will have to absorb it, or take the transport back in-house themselves and absorb it, or tell Tesco the price of a pint is going to have to go up by 5p a pint (or whatever amount is needed).
Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
£20-25ph to drive a lorry?Something will have to give soon as the situation will only get worse with more and more drivers voting with their feet to take advantage of the big money on offer via agency, who in turn are all competing with the each other on money offered.
Ultimately we all end up paying for it anyway as they just increase the shelf prices accordingly, so even on our new higher wages we're no better off.
60-70% above median wages?
By comparison Arla/Moran pay £13.75/hr (or £13.25/hr via ARM agency) to bust your b
ks in town centres dragging tets of milk about with broken wheels. Now do you see why untakenname's supermarket in the middle of London town doesn't have any milk ?Which would you rather do if your local depots were the same distance from your house and the same days/hours on offer? £22/hr sat on the M1 with CC at 56mph listening to your ipod as you take 26 pallets of shrink-wrapped stuff in a curtain-sider to an RDC in Daventry or nearly half that to bust your gut doing multi-drop milk deliveries? There's your answer.
In reply to Chris (it says 403 Forbidden and won't let me post your quote).
It's not the driver's productivity that needs increasing (don't you think they do enough hours already at an average of 55 hours a week?). The productivity needs increasing at the loading end and the tipping end. On RDC work, a day driver will typically spend 50% of his working day stuck at the RDC. The reason for this is because they don't have the space inside to unload your stuff so use you as free mobile storage until they do. There is no reason why it should take 4 hours to unload 26 pallets of produce with a double fork FLT, check that there are indeed 26 pallets of stuff there and then put a moniker on the paperwork and send you on your way. It should be 30 mins at the absolute most, if you have arrived at your allocated booking time. Hauliers won't implement demurrage charges because the end customer will ring their supplier and tell them if they still want their business, don't use that haulier, and the haulier doesn't want to lose the contract so the 4 hr tips stay.
There were a bunch of hauliers in S Wales who had this issue with Aldi not that long ago and pulled their vehicles off the work and put them on other better paying work for this exact reason, but it's very rare to see.
You'd think the supermarkets belly-aching about driver shortages (and as a result, food shortages) would be doing their utmost to get trucks turned around as quick as possible, which would then enable the driver to potentially do 2 round trips in one shift if the distance is only an hour or so, thus doubling productivity and solving the produce shortage. But nope, nothing changes. They don't care and still have you sat there for 4 hours and then go to the government asking them to increase the driver hours from 56/78 hrs a week (driving time/total shift time) to solve their own mismanagement of their RDCs! How about no, GFY ?!
It's not the driver's productivity that needs increasing (don't you think they do enough hours already at an average of 55 hours a week?). The productivity needs increasing at the loading end and the tipping end. On RDC work, a day driver will typically spend 50% of his working day stuck at the RDC. The reason for this is because they don't have the space inside to unload your stuff so use you as free mobile storage until they do. There is no reason why it should take 4 hours to unload 26 pallets of produce with a double fork FLT, check that there are indeed 26 pallets of stuff there and then put a moniker on the paperwork and send you on your way. It should be 30 mins at the absolute most, if you have arrived at your allocated booking time. Hauliers won't implement demurrage charges because the end customer will ring their supplier and tell them if they still want their business, don't use that haulier, and the haulier doesn't want to lose the contract so the 4 hr tips stay.
There were a bunch of hauliers in S Wales who had this issue with Aldi not that long ago and pulled their vehicles off the work and put them on other better paying work for this exact reason, but it's very rare to see.
You'd think the supermarkets belly-aching about driver shortages (and as a result, food shortages) would be doing their utmost to get trucks turned around as quick as possible, which would then enable the driver to potentially do 2 round trips in one shift if the distance is only an hour or so, thus doubling productivity and solving the produce shortage. But nope, nothing changes. They don't care and still have you sat there for 4 hours and then go to the government asking them to increase the driver hours from 56/78 hrs a week (driving time/total shift time) to solve their own mismanagement of their RDCs! How about no, GFY ?!
Your hours are wrong,unless the law has changed.When I was driving you could drive 63 hours and work 84. Your weekly rest just overan into the next working week.
Your hours aren’t defined,as such, but your rest periods are,and they define the length of your day and your week.
If you drive for a really st firm,you work hours rather than days.
Your hours aren’t defined,as such, but your rest periods are,and they define the length of your day and your week.
If you drive for a really s
t firm,you work hours rather than days.skwdenyer said:
Sway said:
We both know that's not going to happen...
I like the Swiss model for being able to work there - you have to show you're earning the same wage as a Swiss citizen would expect. That lead to a lovely six month pay rise when my then employer wanted me out there for a project!
Yes, inflation is coming - and hard. However, pay rises for drivers isn't going to be the driver (sorry!), transport driver wages are a tiny proportion of the cost base, let alone the sales price...
Last mile costs are often a lot higher than you think they are. Driver wages are a not-insignificant part of that problem.I like the Swiss model for being able to work there - you have to show you're earning the same wage as a Swiss citizen would expect. That lead to a lovely six month pay rise when my then employer wanted me out there for a project!
Yes, inflation is coming - and hard. However, pay rises for drivers isn't going to be the driver (sorry!), transport driver wages are a tiny proportion of the cost base, let alone the sales price...
As a percentage of overall cost, they're tiny. The fact you're then leaning on pretty much the cheapest bulk commodity of potatoes as your example for reasoning just shows the leap.
Yes, potatoes are s
t margin, and transport is a decent chunk of the overall cost as the rest of the production process is so ridiculously cheap - but that's a massive outlier. I could equally talk about the products my employer produces, where a overall logistics cost for a single device (inbound and outbound) runs to around £250k, yet double it (as we're pretty much seeing) and we're still making margin without increasing costs as it's such a small percentage of overall sales price and we're not running on zero/wafer thin margins like supermarkets are on essentially loss leaders like milk, potatoes and baked beans. skwdenyer said:
I didn't say it wasn't happening. I said I couldn't see how it was sustainable. Nor, frankly, equitable compared to the salaries paid to highly skilled, highly value-adding employees elsewhere in the economy. I fully understand how supply and demand is working here, but something will have to give quite soon in that market I suspect.
Even “highly skilled” is subject to the laws of supply and demand.When 50% of people go to uni with their 3 A*s and then want to work from home and update numbers on Excel, salaries for that should go down and it’s right that truck drivers get paid more even if it’s blue collar work.
Im retired, but I think it’s great to see wages finally rising. They’ve been on their arse for decades.
Billy is another classic example of a loss leader.
There's no fking way that IKEA will use reduced logistics capacity on probably their lowest margin item. That's stupid.
So, what you've just seen is likely that because you'd registered for restock, if there was sufficient space in the lorry, one has been added in. Guaranteed sale at low margin being better than higher margin goods that are going into store inventory.
There's no f
king way that IKEA will use reduced logistics capacity on probably their lowest margin item. That's stupid.So, what you've just seen is likely that because you'd registered for restock, if there was sufficient space in the lorry, one has been added in. Guaranteed sale at low margin being better than higher margin goods that are going into store inventory.
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