Costa and Greggs latest businesses short of items after food supply disruption
ITV News Correspondent Peter Smith reports on the absence of goods in some food outlets due to supply chain shortages
Costa and Greggs are the latest major chains to have items missing from stores due to supply chain issues that are sweeping across the food retail sector.
Greggs said it was seeing "temporary interruptions" in the supply of some ingredients - though it insisted there is no problem with its chicken bake products, contrary to reports.
Though the bakery chain would not confirm the details of the affected products, it acknowledged that some shops have "occasionally" been short of certain stock.
Costa, meanwhile, said it was also experiencing some stock shortages, apologising for any inconvenience caused while items remain temporarily unavailable.
It comes a day after fast-food chain McDonald's ran out of milkshakes and bottled drinks in all its UK restaurants due to "supply chain issues".
The shortage at McDonald's was reported after Nando's was forced to shut 45 restaurants as it did not have enough chicken.
KFC had also warned that some items would be missing from their menus due to supply issues.
ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi reports on the supply chain issues impacting the entire industry
Retail bosses have now warned of the prospect of shortages on supermarket shelves at Christmas due to the HGV driver shortage, which has been caused by a combination of post-Brexit EU immigration rules, Covid restrictions and self-isolation guidance.
Tesco chairman John Allan said the shortage caused cancelled orders for products such as bread at around 100 Iceland stores, and deliveries of soft drinks had dropped 50% by volume.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, Mr Allan said: “At the moment we’re running very hard just to keep on top of the existing demand and there isn’t the capacity to build stocks that we’d like to see. So in that sense I think there may be some shortages at Christmas.
"But again I wouldn’t want to over-dramatise the extent to which that would be the case, I think it’s very easy to make a drama out of a modest crisis."