Food industry’s ‘Chicken King’ warns of looming Xmas turkey crisis as ‘pingdemic’ and Brexit hit staffing

Published

3 years ago

July 26, 2021

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The food industry tycoon known as the ‘chicken king’ has told Sky News the so-called ‘pingdemic’ staffing crisis is just a small part of unprecedented pressures on supplies, with food shortages already being felt.

Ranjit Singh Boparan, whose interests include the 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG) and a string of casual dining brands, used an interview with Ian King Live to warn that even the Christmas turkey was under threat because of a wider shortage of skilled workers, such as butchers, in the wake of Brexit.

He explained that government plans to alleviate disruption caused by the pandemic did not go far enough as a limited number of supermarket shelves and freezer sections became bare.

It was announced last Thursday that daily contact testing was to be rolled out to workers in the food supply sector under a wider easing of rules that would allow staff deemed “critical” to be exempt from self-isolation if ‘pinged’ as a close contact by the NHS COVID-19 app.

Mr Boporan told the programme that a “couple of hundred” people at 2SFG were currently in quarantine – describing the situation as “not too bad” but he said there remained a lack of clarity on exemptions from ministers.

He complained that a string of other challenges had created a “perfect storm” for the sector, warning last week of the prospect of the worst food shortages since rationing at the end of World War Two.

Those challenges, he said, included ingredient, energy and wage inflation – all exacerbated by post-Brexit staff shortages including a lack of trained hauliers.

The tycoon, who employs 15,000 staff at 2SFG producing staples such as chicken, pies and biscuits, said his business had been hurt by a lot of people returning to their countries of origin within the EU and a lack of skilled UK workers to replace them.

“If you look at the furlough scheme, you’ve got 2.3 million people on the furlough scheme yet we’re short of people within the food sector”, he said.

“A shortage of drivers is just one one element of the supply chain, a very important element which is being made very public, but if you just times up by 100, that’s the labour shortage that we’re facing in the food industry, not just the poultry industry, the food industry today and is something that we need to address.

“Just look at the supply chain, the supply chain starts from the farm.

“If (we are) short of labour on the farms, we’re not going to get the product. If we manage to get it from the farms to the factories and we are short (of) labour there, we’re not going to get it to the depots.

“If we do manage to get to the depots and they can’t get the staff there, they’re not going to get onto lorries. If we are short of drivers, and they can’t get to the supermarket shelves that’s another problem.

“If you haven’t got the people in the supermarkets to put the product on the shelves… you just think about all the supply chain, you just need one element not to work and at the moment there’s several elements that are not working.”

He said a return to basic food products was also possible because of difficulties sourcing ingredients in time for convenience products such as chicken kievs.

On the prospect of disruption to turkey supplies, he added: “How do you expect a thousand workers to come in to provide turkeys at Christmas. It’s not going to happen.”

Business

Apollo-owned ABC Technologies in £800m raid on London-listed auto supplier

Published

6 hours ago

September 13, 2024

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Apollo-owned ABC Technologies in £800m raid on London-listed auto supplier

A London-listed automotive components supplier has become the latest British-based company to draw overseas takeover interest after receiving a series of offers from a Canadian rival.

Sky News has learnt that TI Fluid Systems has received at least two bid proposals from ABC Technologies Holdings, a Canadian competitor.

City sources said on Friday evening that the second of the offers had valued TI Fluid Systems at 180p-a-share – a significant premium to its closing price on Friday of 145.8p.

Shares in the company rose by more than 7% on Friday amid market rumours about a potential bid.

TI Fluid Systems floated in London in October 2017 at a price of 255p-a-share.

One source said the company’s board, which is chaired by Tim Cobbold, a former boss of banknote printer De La Rue, was unlikely to seriously consider a proposal unless it was pitched at closer to 200p-a-share.

Both parties are likely to come under pressure from the Takeover Panel to confirm the interest from ABC Technologies over the weekend, or at the latest on Monday morning.

TI Fluid Systems operates from 98 manufacturing locations in 27 countries.

It specialises in the production of fluid handling and thermal management systems.

The company traces its roots back to 1922, when it began trading as Harry Bundy and Company.

A string of London-listed companies have agreed to takeovers by foreign or private equity bidders this year, the latest of which came this week when Centamin, a gold miner, accepted a £1.9bn offer from AngloGold Ashanti of South Africa.

On Friday, Apollo and TI Fluid Systems both declined to comment.

Business

Mail Online and Sun take axe to US-based workforces

Published

14 hours ago

September 13, 2024

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Mail Online and Sun take axe to US-based workforces

Two of Britain’s biggest newspaper publishers are taking the axe to their US workforces, slashing scores of jobs in the latest evidence of mounting financial pressures across the media sector.

Sky News has learnt that News UK, the publisher of The Sun, and DMGT, owner of the Daily Mail, have this week announced sweeping internal restructurings in their digital operations on the other side of the Atlantic.

Industry sources said on Friday the two companies were cutting significant numbers of employees in the US, where The Sun launched an American edition online four years ago.

By coincidence, the two sets of cutbacks are understood to have been launched on the same day.

DMGT launched Dailymail.com in the US in 2010, and is thought to employ about 200 people there, a reduction from roughly 260 seven years ago.

One insider said the DMGT layoffs represented just under 10% of its US workforce, while the proportion of The Sun’s US staff being let go is understood to be much higher.

A source close to News UK, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, denied it was as high as 80%.

The company is thought to employ about 100 people on The Sun’s US platform.

One media analyst said the redundancies, which have not been announced publicly, were a reflection of the “intense” pressure on news media brands, even in areas where their digital audiences had gained significant momentum.

A spokesperson for The Sun said: “The US Sun has been an incredibly successful business, driving billions of page views.

“However the digital landscape has experienced seismic change in the last 12 months and we need to reset the strategy and resize the team to secure the long term, sustainable future for The Sun’s business in the US.”

A spokesperson for Associated Newspapers, the DMGT subsidiary which publishes the Daily Mail, said in response to an enquiry from Sky News: “We have made a small number of job cuts in some areas of our US editorial department.

“This was a difficult, but necessary decision, which will enable us to continue to invest in areas where we can grow our audience.”

Business

Investigation into potential second Post Office scandal will be ‘positive’ for sub-postmasters

Published

15 hours ago

September 13, 2024

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Investigation into potential second Post Office scandal will be 'positive' for sub-postmasters

The lawyer for those affected by Capture software predating the faulty Horizon system says his “belief” is that the “report is going to be positive”.

Neil Hudgell, a solicitor at Hudgell Solicitors, is representing over 40 former sub-postmasters who used Capture in the 1990s.

Dozens who used it claim they were wrongfully accused of stealing money from their Post Office branches, similar to the Horizon scandal.

Mr Hudgell told Sky News: “We need to see the report, we need to consider options.”

“But clearly, if it is a positive report”, he added, “and we are going to start talking about exoneration and compensation, then we need a process to reflect the ageing demographic of those involved, ie it needs to be quick, and we need to figure out what the quickest route is”.

Capture was introduced to some branches from 1992 – and was the predecessor to the faulty Horizon accounting software.

Under Horizon, hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015.

What’s happening with the report?

An independent investigation into Capture began in the summer and has now concluded.

It was carried out by risk advisory and financial solutions company Kroll.

The report has now been passed to the Department for Business and Trade.

Former sub-postmaster Steve Marston believes he was falsely convicted of theft due to “glitches” in Capture software.

The personal toll

Shortfalls of £79,000 were found at his branch in Greater Manchester.

Earlier this year, he met the then Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake when it was agreed that an independent IT expert would assess evidence claiming to “prove” Capture software was faulty.

Mr Marston said that “as a group” he believes those affected have provided “an overwhelming amount of evidence to show that Capture was totally unfit for use and should never have been released”.

He claims that sub-postmasters were told that “Capture would make our lives easier and that we would no longer have to do manual accounting as we had in the past”.

He says he was given the software by the Post Office “and basically left to get on with it without any sort of guidance”.

He describes “extra stress” and that he and his wife “are struggling” whilst waiting for the conclusions to the Kroll report.

Campaigners discovered old floppy disks earlier this year with the Capture software on them and passed them on to investigators.

Mr Marston, and other sub-postmasters, say they show that errors in the system could generate false shortfalls in accounts and believe Capture evidence was used in his prosecution.

They also claim that it appears that errors occurred when upgrades were made to the software.

Other factors such as power cuts are also thought to be another possible reason for faults.

The Kroll report is due to be released in the next few weeks.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “We will thoroughly examine Kroll’s report into the Capture system and its impact on postmasters and set out next steps in due course.”