Prices and empty shelves

[Simpo Two]

My supermarket is starting to resemble Moscow in 1960s.

Can some analyst explain exactly how this happening?

So...

Empty shelves due to lack of lorry drivers. Lack of lorry drivers due to... Brexit maybe? But that was Jan 2020. Going off to do other things during Covid lockdown? But that was 2020 as well.

Are rising prices simply due to shortages in the supply chain and/or source? Why is fuel suddenly top price again? Why is it all happening in summer 2021?

They must all be connected but I can't join them up...

[The jiffle king]

Lorry driver shortage........ 60k short before pandemic, approx 19k left during pandemic, approx 25k not trained during pandemic

Source - some radio 4 program which I can't recall.

Could argue some of the 19k was Brexit but not sure the rest remotely come into that space

[Simpo Two]

Sheepshanks said:

Not sure if serious....?

I am serious, and don't call me Shirley

Just explain it in a way that adds up from start to finish.

@jiffle king and does that explain all the price rises?

Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 17th September 12:41

[coldel]

Probably a combination of a number of things including brexit. The DVLA have been striking a lot lately, huge backlog of HGV licence renewals sitting in their offices unprocessed another reason.

[Ham_and_Jam]

Haven’t been in a supermarket in over 12 months, but all the items on my deliveries thing have been coming as normal. I think maybe 1 thing missing on my last 4 deliveries.

Not sure what the stock levels / inventory of products are like at their distribution centres, but nothing unusual being seen by the end user.

[coldel]

Simpo Two said:

I am serious, and don't call me Shirley

Just explain it in a way that adds up sense from start to finish.

@jiffle king and does that explain all the price rises?

Supermarkets run at circa a 2-3% margin in their non-fuel world so any increase in costs will mean a direct and quick reaction to supermarket prices. Cost of import, increased cost of labour in the supply chain, weather events, disruption to supply chain caused by foreign economies the list is pretty long.

Fuel prices, well thats just reactions to oil prices which is pretty well documented if you type it into google, that will explain fuel prices for you.

[rjfp1962]

Prices up a bit for sure, but didn't see any empty shelves at my local Aldi yesterday....

[Al Gorithum]

Haven't seen price increases or empty shelves (North London and South Essex).

Post-Brexit I was fully expecting a price increase on my favorite imported Belgian beers. Not happened yet.

[coldel]

Al Gorithum said:

Post-Brexit I was fully expecting a price increase on my favorite imported Belgian beers. Not happened yet.

They are probably brewed in Romford or something

[StevieBee]

Simpo Two said:

Just explain it in a way that adds up from start to finish.

I'll give it a go Simpo though it's not a binary issue.

And for the record, a good friend and neighbour is a senior bod at one of the UK's largest commercial food suppliers (supplying schools, hospitals, pubs, etc.) - they sell more food than Tesco - so she is at the coal face on this every day and I tend to take her insight more than I do the media for this reason.

Firstly the driver shortage. This started with Brexit and was made worse by Covid. Brexit forced many working here but from other EU countries to return home or to mainland Europe where they found that in the time since they left, wages had increased quite a bit so there is less incentive to come back to the UK. Covid meant that many more decided to return home to families and found the same thing. So domestic distribution is severely limited but this is not the case everywhere which explains why some here see no issues and others like you, do.

The same applies to things like crop picking. This problem is amplified further as there may be a bunch of Brits unemployed that may well be able to fill the void but this is a regional problem. If you're a 25 year old trainee accountant that's lost his job in Liverpool, would you relocate to Norfolk to pick berries @ £9 an hour?

You then have the 'just-in-time' delivery system that Brexit has pretty much destroyed. So for example, if you make something using a certain type of tomato that's grown in Spain, you order your tomatoes to arrive on a certain day at a certain time so you don't need to store them. The tomatoes are harvested, put into a truck, driven to Calais and 48 hours later are being dropped off at your factory. This only works with frictionless borders which has now been removed adding bureaucracy (the existence of which was one of the reason we voted to leave the EU!), time and money.

To put this into perspective my friend's company has dropped around 30% of their line of products because they can no longer get the ingredients at the right quality, the right price at the right time.

So, in summary and simplistically:

Brexit created a dramatic fall in workers in key sectors, made worse by the impact of Covid. We can't get stuff places as efficiently as we did.

Brexit has made importing stuff more difficult and in some cases, rendered the importation of some things unviable meaning that some things are not being made in the quantities they once were - if at all.

The issue is not with Brexit per-se but the failure of the government to implement the measures they said they would to avoid all this happening. This is quite a handy graphic that explains the issue:

[CAPP0]

I went and picked up some sawn 2x2 and some untreated shiplap yesterday which are the first part of the man cave extension (2m x 4m extension and this will make the frame and two sides, doors and roof to follow) and it cost me £600. Even the person on the till winced as the total came up. I actually priced it all up online beforehand and this was the cheapest of 4 suppliers.

£600!

[PH4555]

Simpo Two said:

My supermarket is starting to resemble Moscow in 1960s.

Can some analyst explain exactly how this happening?

So...

Empty shelves due to lack of lorry drivers. Lack of lorry drivers due to... Brexit maybe? But that was Jan 2020. Going off to do other things during Covid lockdown? But that was 2020 as well.

Are rising prices simply due to shortages in the supply chain and/or source? Why is fuel suddenly top price again? Why is it all happening in summer 2021?

They must all be connected but I can't join them up...

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https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...