A Walkers Crisps crisis engulfing the snack industry has seen sellers flogging individual packets of salt and vinegar favourites for over £6 each.
In most supermarkets, the tangy and savoury-flavoured potato treats cost around 90p per pack.
But such are the scarcity of the once-commonplace items some of the rare nibbles are now fetching £6.89 online – an increase of 665 per cent.
One seller on eBay from Leicester, coincidentally in the same city as Walkers’ birth, was offering them at a huge profit.
A second photograph taken in London at a shop showed where the bags should go.
The makers had warned their suppliers about the possibility of a shortage in crisps for several weeks following an IT error at their company.
MailOnline received a statement from a Walkers spokesperson saying that the recent IT upgrade had caused disruptions in supply. However, our websites are making snacks and crisps on a much smaller scale.
The London supermarket had few vendors of Walkers favorite crisp products
After an IT upgrade, Walkers has empty shelves in Iceland and north London of Walkers crisps
Waitrose, Canary Wharf (London) – Friday, empty crisp shelves
Some sellers were advertising one packet of crisps for £6.89 each, dwarfing the usual 90p
“We are doing all we can to improve production and bring people’s favorite products back onto shelves. We are very sorry for any inconvenience.
The UK has been suffering from chaos due to the global supply chain crisis. This is causing shortages in supermarket shelves and delayed deliveries, as well as a slowdown in economic recovery.
This is partly due to the fact that supply cannot keep pace with rapidly growing demand when the UK economy reopens. There are many contributing factors, including staff shortages and Brexit.
There are approximately half a million job openings in the UK’s food supply chain, representing 12.5% of total employment.
Additionally, the economy has had a devastating impact on haulage. For Christmas the government promised to increase the number of drivers working in the haulage sector.
Walkers Crisps supplies will be affected for several additional weeks after a “recent IT upgrade”, raising concerns about the availability of the Christmas favourite.
Our festive feast fear is solved! Heinz offers Christmas dinner inside a TIN, after being warned of a potential turkey shortage.
Heinz claims that the success of the soup will result in more fast Christmas feasts.
Fear not, Heinz has an emergency plan in case you are worried about a shortage of turkeys this Christmas.
This Christmas soup has a large amount of both turkey and sprouts, along with stuffing.
The £1.50 Big Soup Christmas Dinner also has roasties, pigs in blankets and a gravy and cranberry sauce.
You’ll need to get it if you want to feed your family. This year, there will only be 500 cans.
If the success of Heinz is continued, Heinz could make even more money next year.
Heinz is not the only person trying to make Christmas easy. In 2013, GAME, a retailer in Germany launched a “Christmas Tinner” for gamers who are too addicted to their gaming consoles to even think about cooking.
A lack of drivers caused fuel delays, which led to panic-buying. This triggered a fuel crisis that lasted weeks.
Shepherd Neame chief executive Jonathan Neame warned that there will be a ‘terrific supply-chain squeezes’ in the food and beverage industry over the next six to nine month.
According to industry leaders, the combination of strict immigration control and Brexit, as well coronavirus (where many foreign workers choose to return home), has caused the crisis.
Experts believe the shortage of HGV drivers is caused by a mix of factors, including EU workers returning home from Brexit and the lockdown restrictions that resulted in the cancellation of 40,000 HGV testing. The closing of an exemption for certain drivers’ tax payments and low wages are also reasons they cite.
McDonald’s just removed its Chicken Legend burger due to supply chain difficulties, leaving customers furious.
Online customers labelled fast food company ‘psycho” and ‘out-of-order’. Another vows to riot after they are unable order the Fried Chicken Burger, typically served in a Ciabatta Bun with lettuce, mayonnaise and mayonnaise.
McDonald’s first stated supply chain issues were “affecting the availability of the Chicken Legend” and said it would work hard to return the item as soon possible. Later, it clarified that the item was still available in restaurants chains but not for delivery.
Wetherspoon bosses were forced to apologise after revealing that venues across the country had run out of salt, blaming ‘supplier disruption’, with new food providers being sought to alleviate the pressure on existing stock shortages.
Also last week, MPs were warned that UK supermarkets will be short of home-produced fresh turkeys this Christmas with stores turning to imports from France and Poland.
According to industry leaders, it’s a sign of an even larger crisis in the supply chain. UK farmers raised fewer chicks in the UK this year as they realized that there was not enough staff to deal with them.
Also, the haulage industry has been severely affected by the crisis. The government pledged to hire thousands of more drivers in the Christmas period. Stock image
After McDonald’s removed Chicken Legends (pictured), angry fast-food fans slammed the restaurant for’supply chain’ problems
UK pub-goers were outraged by the shortage of JD Wetherspoon sachets, as the supply chain crisis hit the beloved chain. Pictured: Wetherspoon location in Littlehampton (West Sussex).
Graeme Dear, Chairman of the British Poultry Council, testified before MPs to an inquiry on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. He stated there is a likelihood’ that the UK will have a shortage for Christmas turkeys.
This year, around 20% fewer birds were raised on British farms.
While the government recently stated that 5,500 short-term visas would be granted to poultry plant workers, it was not enough time for turkey raising.
Dear commented: “The irony is that we may have to import Turkey from France and Poland for Christmas. This will probably be with some of our workers whom we had trained and then left back to their home countries.”
Tom Bradshaw of the National Farmers Union said that the union has had to fight the Home Office indefinitely over the issue of allowing more foreign workers into the country.
The UK Harvest Commission allows the entry of around 30,000 seasonal workers under a scheme called the “Seasonal Workers Scheme”, but the NFU suggests that this number should rise to at least 50,000 to 60,000.
Mr Bradshaw said: ‘The food waste we are seeing at a farm level… is completely inexcusable.’
This is a carefully watched report found that UK manufacturers raised their prices by the largest amount in at least two decades after a ‘severe’ increase in raw materials and energy costs, as Supply chain disruption, staff shortages, as well as a decline in new export work have all held down output growth.
According to the IHS Markit/CIPS UK Manufacturing Purchasing Managers survey, The PMI rose despite improved orders growth and increased employment. However, there was also a sharper increase in stock of purchases and longer lead times for vendors. A further slowdown in growth slowed growth.
In October, the index recorded 57.8, an increase from 57.1 in September. This is its first rise in five months. The manufacturing production rate rose at the lowest pace in eight months, and only marginally.