Shoppers in the UK are facing low supplies of turkey and paracetamol in the lead up to Christmas, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.
According to the ONS data, 24% of frozen turkeys were unavailable or in short supply between 17 December and 20 December.
A quarter of paracetamol supplies (25%) were also not available or completely sold out during the same period.
READ MORE: Wholesalers call for Covid relief funds to avoid “supply chain failures”
This news comes as demand for turkeys started rising in late October as supermarkets feared supply chain disruptions would affect stock.
Asda went as far to charter its own private cargo ship to bolster festive supplies and turkey stocks, in a bid to avoid the Christmas supply chain chaos.
Additionally, Kantar data revealed turkey sales have doubled two months ago as families prepared ahead of time.
Further concerns over Covid keeping thousands of workers at home, coupled with Brexit induced HGV driver shortages increased turkey supply fears as early as September.
“The big problem we’ve got at the moment is labour, we simply cannot find people to run our farms and run our factory,” Traditional Norfolk Poultry managing director Mark Gorton told ITV news earlier this year.
“This is hugely serious; we are committed to growing these chickens to supply our customers and of course once the birds are on the ground they’re growing.”
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