Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy warned that disruption caused by the Red Sea attacks could potentially drive up consumer prices, while M&S boss Stuart Machin is expecting delays to stock deliveries.
Attacks on cargo ships around the Suez Canal, one off the world’s busiest shipping lane, mean many vessels are being re-routed from Asia to Europe.
Murphy said: “If they do have to go the whole way around Africa to get to Europe, it extends shipping times, it constrains shipping space and it drives up shipping costs, so that could drive inflation on some items.
Meanwhile M&S’ chief executive officer Stuart Machin said that although it was not currently experiencing any delay in stock deliveries due to the Red Sea disruption, it was “conscious of it”.
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“There’s two things we’re conscious of: the costs and also, more importantly, the availability of new ranges. We haven’t experienced that yet. We’re expecting maybe some slight delay in newness in February and March,” said Machin.
However, he said that would mainly hit M&S’ clothing, although there could be a “small impact on BWS [beer, wines and spirits] and bits of packaging but nothing at all significant”.
The supermarket giants’ warnings come after rival retailer Sainsbury’s revealed it was working with the government to try and mitigate disruptions to shipments in the Red Sea after a series of attacks by Houthi rebels.
