Bare supermarket shelves, no milkshakes at McDonald’s, not enough chickens for Nando’s. Food supply chains in the UK are said to be struggling because of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. Unless action is taken, industry bosses warn the shortages will only get worse in the run-up to Christmas, the busiest time of the year. UK retailers and restaurants are struggling to cope with a shortage of drivers, and in particular heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers, and food processing staff after Covid-19. This week, McDonald’s stopped selling milkshakes and bottled drinks in most UK regions, but was working to resolve the problem “as soon as possible”. The irony was not lost on those who voted against Brexit to stay in the European Union. A photo of a protester throwing a milkshake at Brexit Party founder Nigel Farage was one of the defining images of the 2019 general election campaign. The announcement from McDonald’s came a week after the Nando’s chicken restaurant chain said it had to temporarily close 50 branches because of poultry shortages. “The UK supply chain is having a bit of a [night]’mare right now,” the company tweeted on August 17. “This is having a knock-on effect with some of our restaurants across England, Scotland and Wales.” KFC said it was struggling to stock some items and sandwich chain Subway also reported “minor supply chain shortages”. On Wednesday, the CEO of one of the UK’s biggest retailers warned that the food shortages were at “a worse level than at any time I have seen”. Five years after referendum, Brexit continues to plague pandemic-hit Britain Steve Murrells, chief executive of the Co-operative Group supermarket chain, told the Times the disruption to supply has been driven by “Brexit and issues caused by Covid”. The problem is not unique to Britain – the United States and other European countries also have truck driver shortages – but Brexit has made matters worse, industry groups say. “We’ve had a combination of factors that have brought together a perfect storm,” said Natalie Chapman, head of policy at Logistics UK, a logistics industry trade body. “At the one end, we are losing drivers ... and at the other end, they are not coming in. So, what was a shortage has now become a crisis.” The UK government claims food supply disruptions were largely because of workers self-isolating due Covid-19. There was a shortfall of about 100,000 drivers in the UK, according to road haulage bosses, partly caused by the exit from the UK during the pandemic of thousands of EU drivers who have not yet returned. During UK lockdowns, HGV driving license tests were suspended and thousands of UK drivers were unable to gain qualifications to enter the work pool. In response, the government has increased the hours drivers are allowed to work, which has raised safety concerns. Expensive cheese, rotting seafood and other Brexit problems The industry is now calling for a temporary relaxation of immigration rules to allow access for non-UK drivers, but so far the government has not said it was willing to do so. “We are concerned about how our members are going to deliver [for] Christmas. So far we’ve hit a bit of a brick wall,” said Chapman. The boss of the cut-price frozen food chain Iceland urged the UK government to allow special exemptions for drivers from overseas “HGV driver shortages should be replaced with UK workers – but this will take time,” tweeted Richard Walker, Iceland’s managing director. “Before then, we’ve A LOT of goods to move around for Xmas. Temporarily adding EU drivers to the exempt list as ‘skilled workers’ is the answer. Nobody wants a 2nd crap Xmas.” The British Poultry Council has warned that production of this year’s Christmas turkeys could be down by as much as 20 per cent because of a shortage of workers in its plants. “This is a disaster and it is 100 per cent to do with Brexit, because the people we need to employ have gone home,” Mark Gorton, of Traditional Norfolk Poultry, a company based in the east of England and a member of the National Poultry Board told the local Eastern Daily Press . “They feel they are not wanted any more, and they know they can go and work in France or Germany or Spain.” Additional reporting by Reuters and DPA