Organic sweetcorn ready for packing.
Unfortunately, a little late this year, but organic sweetcorn on the move, first week of September, weather has held up the ripening process, with cool cloudy days, and shortening daylight some of our sweetcorn may not fully ripen, but it all looks good in the field.
It seems the transport and lorry driving issue is a hot potato that is not going away and there are no surprises there. The biggest complainants being the supermarkets, screaming their heads off, so used to getting their own way and getting exactly
what they want, as they desperately try to steal drivers from other companies, and the reality is that the other companies, not to be out done are stealing them back.
We now have Priti Patel entering the fray, with the news that ‘ Britain voted for Brexit, and Brexit means severely curtailed immigration and no temporary visas will be issued to cover short term contracts for European drivers’. If this is to be the case, Britain is going to have to get used to empty shelves. Nothing that can be done in the next 12 months that will improve the supply of drivers. Training more drivers is fine-up to a point, but you need to remember that every day drivers are retiring, and other drivers are not coping with the extra stress of longer hours, dished up by Government and hold ups at depots.
So the question that has to be asked, is how empty do the shelves have to be, before Priti Patel caves in to the demands of the Supermarkets and a political decision has to be made. It will be a little ironic if due to staff shortages in the food processing sector, there is nothing much to fill the trucks with. Its probably time for the Supermarkets to shorten their supply chains, and have less lorries driving around in ever decreasing circles, now that would make sense.
