Coronavirus: Supermarkets slam health minister’s food supply claims

On Thursday, health secretary Matt Hancock, appearing on Question Time, said: “We are working with the supermarkets to make sure that if people are self-isolating then we will be able to get the food and supplies that they need.”

Hancock also said he was “confident” food supplies would not run out and there was “absolutely no need” for people to panic buy.

However, a number of supermarket sources have repudiated Hancock’s comments and said they have had no direct conversations with the government.

One grocery executive told the BBC: “Matt Hancock has totally made up what he said about working with supermarkets. We haven’t heard anything from the government directly.”

Another grocery source told Retail Week “there has so far been little government contact – with us or with the industry as a whole”.

The government has since clarified that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is leading the response to the outbreak, but sources said its efforts so far have been piecemeal at best.

“They have called some [grocers] and not others. To be fair, it’s quite hard for them, as each grocer has its own supply chain issues and unique ways of working,” said one source.

Another source added that “the government has been slower to engage on this [coronavirus] than we would have liked” and criticised it for not producing any real guidance for retailers to work from.

Operation Yellowhammer

Retail Week also understands Defra has reverted to its ‘Operation Yellowhammer’ guidelines in its communications around the virus.

The Operation Yellowhammer dossier, which was leaked to The Sunday Times in August 2019, covered the government’s planning to ensure food supplies did not run low in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The documents highlighted, however, that “the availability of fresh food will be reduced and prices will rise”; there will likely be “significant disruption at ports [that] will last up to three months before the flow of traffic improves”; and “up to 85% of lorries using the main Channel crossings may not be ready for French customs and could face delays of up to two-and-a-half days”.

BRC boss Helen Dickinson said it was “working constructively with government officials” to ensure supermarkets remained stocked and supply chains continued to function as normal.

Data from Retail Economics and law firm Squire Patton Boggs earlier this week showed 52% of retailers had experienced delays in their supply chains as a direct result of the virus.