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UK poultry producers have warned that serious staff shortages caused by Brexit could mean there are not enough turkeys to go round this Christmas. This week’s partial closure of the restaurant chain Nando’s and fewer dishes on the menu at KFC have thrown the consumer spotlight on a labor crisis exacerbated by Covid.
The British Poultry Council (BPC) said its members, including 2 Sisters Food Group – the country’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken and KellyBronze Turkeys, had told them that one in six jobs were unfilled as result of EU workers leaving the UK after Brexit.
The council’s chief executive, Richard Griffiths, said the group had written to the home secretary, Priti Patel, this month asking for the government to relax immigration rules but had not yet received a response.
The BPC said that the poultry industry employs more than 40,000 people, but there are nearly 7,000 vacancies. The shortage means some chicken producers have reduced the size of their product ranges and cut weekly output by up to 10%, the letter said. The supply of turkey is down by a similar amount but could decline by as much as 20% at Christmas as firms fear they will not be able to draft in the usual number of seasonal workers.
Paul Kelly, the managing director of KellyBronze, which produces hand-plucked, free-range turkeys, said big producers would opt to rear fewer birds if they were not confident of securing the 1,500 to 2,000 extra staff needed to pluck, pack and deliver the birds in December.
“There will be a massive shortage because companies cannot risk hatching turkeys and pushing them on the farm if they can’t get the workers to do the job,” Kelly said. “It would be financial suicide. Turkey after Christmas Day is worth nothing.”
Meanwhile, a 10th of Nando’s 450 UK restaurants are
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