News Bites
In this edition of News Bites, we’ll be talking about new food and drink supply predictions for this summer, the success of the foodservice delivery market and touch on tackling the labour shortage and inflation.
Food and drink supply predictions for summer 2023
Hospitality buying specialists Lynx Purchasing has predicted what the market will look like into the summer months – and have warned that the problems caused by fresh produce shortages and price increases are likely to last until well into spring. Managing Director Rachel Dobson comments: “Repeated shocks have shown us how fragile the supply chain is, whether it’s the sunflower oil shortage after the Ukraine invasion or the impact of avian flu on poultry and egg supply.” Read this fascinating article for a peek into what the rest of your year could look like!
UK delivery market set to grow by 7.8% this year
The brand-new Lumina Intelligence UK Foodservice Delivery Market Report 2023 predicts the delivery market to reach a total value of £14.4bn this year. Wide reaching investment in delivery services – including development of aggregator platforms, optimisation of brand sites and prominent marketing activity – will drive growth.
Worker health checks and hospitality workers from abroad: tackling the labour shortage
In an effort to deal with labour shortages, UK ministers are looking at introducing annual health checks and allowing more hospitality staff to come in from abroad. The hospitality industry is one of the most likely to be added to the list of sectors where there’s a shortage of workers, which will help the industry recruit from overseas.
Price rises in restaurants and pubs push up UK inflation
We’ve all heard the word “inflation” a bit too much recently – but unfortunately it has risen again from January’s rate of 10.1% up to 10.4% in February. And according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the main driver behind this increase came from restaurants and cafes, where prices rose by 11.4%.