Quality Street could be the latest good to suffer the wrath of the supply-chain crisis and it has officially gone too far.
Speaking to the BBC, Mark Schneider, the chief executive of Nestle, said labour shortages and transportation issues had hit them too, though he said they were doing their best to resolve them.
“Like other businesses, we are seeing some labour shortages and some transportation issues but it’s our UK team’s top priority to work constructively with retailers to supply them,” he said.
When asked whether he could guarantee Quality Street would be in the shops this Christmas he replied: “We are working hard.”
It comes amid a number of sectors having problems with their supply chains due to a chronic shortage of HGV drivers which in turn has been caused by the coronavirus pandemic creating a backlog of people waiting to take their driving tests and causing people to self-isolate.
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Brexit has also played its merry part as people have left the UK amid stricter immigration laws. Efforts to attract people back to the UK to carry out temporary roles to plug gaps have fallen short of expectations.
High street food chains like Nando’s and McDonald’s have been among the affected while panic buying petrol has exacerbated pressures on the fuel supply chain and there are concerns these issues could tick along for a while yet.
So, reacting to the latest chocolate news, people were horrified and others expressed concerns that people would start to panic buy the chocolates too:
They say it’s quality not quantity that is important but all we know is that if we don’t have a high quantity of quality (street), we will feel very much short changed.