The boss of food company 2 Sisters has told the BBC that food prices could rise by as much as 15 per cent this year. Ronald Kers said that costs will spike as a direct result of the Ukraine crisis.
According to the BBC:
Russia and Ukraine are some of the world’s biggest suppliers of wheat and exports are expected to be affected by the conflict.
In addition, the price of gas – which is used to heat greenhouses and to make fertiliser, which is essential to food production – has soared.
War in the region is likely to exacerbate prices that were already increasing during what has been described as a cost of living crisis, according to some experts.
2 Sisters employs more than 14,000 people in the UK and specialises in poultry and chilled foods.
Its chief executive told the BBC’s Today programme that it had already been forced to pay 50% more for chicken it receives from farms.
He suggested that if the war continues for months, “fundamentally it means as a country we may need to start importing less and producing more ourselves”.
“We need to work together with all supply chain partners to find a solution… it’s a very complex issue.”
Mr Kers also suggested that the UK’s exit from the European Union had made matters more difficult, due to a bigger administrative burden for farmers and less alignment on rules with food companies on the continent.
His comments come shortly after the National Farmers Union (NFU) warned that food production could be hit, affecting the affordability of food in the shops for years.
The think tank The New Economics Foundation has just released a report that nearly half of all children are living in hosueholds that will be forced to make drastic cutbacks this Spring.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Sam Tims, the chief economist at The New Economics Foundation said:
“The cost of living is increasing faster than at any point in recent history. While all families are set to feel a squeeze come April, the lowest income households will be hit proportionately harder.
But the cost of living is only a crisis when people cannot afford it and government support must be able to flexibly respond to this. There is little time left for the chancellor to take action to avert the worst real-terms incomes squeeze in 50 years.”
