Vegetables are being left to rot in fields due to a ‘chronic’ crop picker and driver shortage, as recruitment bosses urged UK officials to let in ten times more foreign workers.
Guy Moreton, CEO at MorePeople, a company that specialises in the hiring of food service supervisory and managerial roles, stated that the Government’s restrictions against foreign workers are to blame.
Lincolnshire Live told him that he believes we need five to ten more people than the Government is allowing in at the moment.
“All of my clients, and there are hundreds of them, are all short of people. Some of them have hundreds of people per day.
“It is a shame that they are leaving perfectly good food in their fields because it is impossible to pick it. Because of the shortage of drivers, it is often impossible to pick it and get it to the depot.
Food waste is a sin. To leave good quality food that cost money and resources to grow, and to leave them in the fields is unacceptable.
“The Government’s inflexibility on this issue is appalling, I think that they’ve got it wrong and they aren’t listening.”
This is all happening amid a wider crisis throughout the food supply chain due to a shortage in workers and HGV drivers, and congestion at global trade ports.
As a result of a ‘chronic crop picker shortage and driver shortage, vegetable crops are being left to rot in the fields. Recruitment bosses have urged UK officials (stock image)
Mr Moreton went on: ‘There is absolutely a major issue regarding hard-working, down-to-earth people who want to pick crops in the field and pack in packhouses.
“This is not only true for agriculturally related organizations, but it is also common across the entire food industry.
“Nearly every food client we deal with that supplies supermarkets food has a shortage in hourly-paid workers within the factories.”
He also stated that the pandemic was another reason for the shortage of workers. “Covid hasn’t helped because a lot Eastern European workers went home, and don’t want to return to the UK, and that’s mainly due to travel restrictions.
Jo Musson (County Advisor for South Lincolnshire), National Farmer’s Union, stated: “This is a perfect storm in labour supply issues.
“Our growers produce high-quality vegetables and salads, as well as flowers and plants for sale throughout the country.
“But because there is a severe shortage of workers, we are seeing crops left to rot on the fields and not enough people to wash them, pack them, and transport them to retailers.
Amy Thomas, Lincolnshire Rural Support Network’s head for charity, stated that the situation is only getting worse.
“Having someone to talk with, share and unload daily concerns can help you see a clearer way through those difficulties.
“The most important thing to remember is that there are always people to talk to. Please don’t suffer silently.
A spokesperson for the Government said that the UK had a resilient food supply system, which has proven to be resilient in meeting unprecedented challenges.
“We have increased the number of visas for seasonal workers to 30,000. This allows workers to travel to the UK for upto six months. We continue to work closely in partnership with the industry to understand the demand and supply of labour, including seasonal and permanent workforce requirements.
“But we also want the UK’s employers to make long-term investment in our domestic workforce. Our Plan for Jobs is helping people all over the country retrain, learn new skills, and get back to work.
The global supply chain crisis has caused chaos in the UK and hampered its economic recovery. There have been shortages on UK supermarket shelves, delayed deliveries, and higher prices.
It is partly due to the fact that supply cannot keep up with rapidly growing demand as the UK economy reopens. Other contributing factors include staff shortages, Brexit, Covid, and other economic conditions.
Guy Moreton is the CEO of MorePeople. MorePeople specialises in the hiring of food service supervisory management roles (stock image).
There are currently around half a billion job vacancies in the UK food supply chains, which is 12.5% of the total workforce.
The crisis has also affected the haulage sector, with the Government promising to hire thousands more lorry drivers during the Christmas period.
A shortage in drivers caused fuel delays, which led to panic-buying. This triggered a fuel crisis that lasted weeks.
Shepherd Neame’s chief executive Jonathan Neame warned that there will be ‘terrific supply chains squeezes’ in the food and drinks industry over the next six to 9 months.
Industry leaders insist that a combination of strict immigration controls and Brexit, as well as coronavirus, where many foreign workers choose to return home, has caused the crisis.
Experts claim that the shortage in HGV drivers is due a combination of factors such as EU employees returning home following Brexit and lockdown restrictions which resulted in the cancellation of 40,000 HGV test. They also pointed out low wages and the closing a tax loophole for certain drivers.
Earlier this week, it emerged that British cattle farmers are being forced to export carcasses to the EU for processing due to a shortage of butchers.
Nick Allen, chief executive at the British Meat Processors Association, stated that beef producers were shipping supplies from Ireland to cut and pack the meat before re-importing them into Britain.
This will cost around £1,500 for each lorry load when transport fees and Brexit customs requirements – such as export health certifications – are taken into account.
Many millions of pig carcasses are expected to be shipped to the Netherlands by pork farmers. This method of producing meat cannot be classified as British pork for sale in the UK.
“Due the shortage of meat workers within the UK and the limitations in recruiting caused by immigration policy, processors are exploiting the fact that other nations are sourcing extra labour from all over the world and exporting the meat to be processed and returned back to this country,” Allen stated.
He stated that while it comes at an additional cost, it is a better option to empty shelves and animals building up in the farms.
According to him, there is a shortage of staff in many UK meat plants. It can even reach 20% in some cases.
He said that 15,000 vacancies are needed in the UK beef industry, with most of them skilled or semi-skilled.
The British government approved 800 temporary visas for butchers who will be working in the UK for six-months. However, the government is not able to say how many applications have been received.
The crisis has also affected the haulage sector, with the government promising to hire thousands more lorry drivers during the Christmas period (stock photo).
According to the National Pig Association, more than 10,000 healthy pigs had to be killed due to a backlog of farms.
Chief executive Zoe Davies: “This isn’t excess supply. Farmers were contracted to grow these pork pigs. But the facilities are taking a quarter more than they agreed to because they don’t have the butchers.
“The government must help now because processors have tried very hard lately to recruit, and wages have gone up exponentially in the last few months. Most people in the UK don’t want to work in abattoirs, and it doesn’t really matter how much you pay them.
Farmers are prohibited from selling their meat and can only kill their animals for food on the farm.
It comes after MPs warned that supermarkets would be short of fresh turkeys home-produced this Christmas, with stores turning to imports mainly from France and Poland.
Farm industry leaders warned that this was evidence of a larger crisis in the food supply chain due to a chronic shortage of workers.
Because they knew that there would not be enough workers to handle the chicks, turkey farmers in the nation decided to reduce their numbers.
Leaders of British farmers said that the labour shortages are a disaster in British food production, with the result that huge amounts of fresh produce and dairy products are going to waste.
In evidence to an inquiry into the impact of labour shortages, farm industry leaders provided the doomsday scenario.
Graeme Dear is the Chairman of British Poultry Council. He stated that there is a ‘likelihood’ there will be a shortage UK-produced turkeys in time for Christmas. This year, around 20 percent fewer birds were raised on British farms.
Although the Government announced recently that it would allow 5,500 workers in poultry plants to enter on short-term visas for a few days, this was too late to increase the number of turkeys being bred.
Mr Dear stated: “We would love to have known that in June, and so could have placed enough Turkeys for a complete Christmas.
“We will do our best to ensure Christmas is as normal and enjoyable as possible, but there is a possibility that there will be a shortage. If we had known that in June or July that would be fixed.
“The irony is that we might find ourselves having to import turkeys from France and Poland for a British Christmas. This will probably be with some of those workers we trained and then left back home.