Trouble is brewing in the UK’s favourite chicken chain, as Nando’s has been forced to shut down numerous restaurants because of staffing issues at supply factories. The food chain is the latest business to be hit by the ‘pingdemic’ which has been taking hold of the country.
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In order to temporarily diffuse the situation, Nando’s will be providing its supply factories with 70 staff members. A spokesperson said:
The UK food industry has been experiencing disruption across its supply chain in recent weeks due to staff shortages, and a number of our restaurants have been impacted.
However, we can confirm that from today Nando’s will be lending seventy of our brilliant team members to support our key suppliers – working in partnership to help get things moving again.
Demand for chicken
Customers have taken to social media to express their disappointment, after a number of them were refused service in branches across the UK. One person wrote on Twitter:
Been to 3 different nandos in one day just to get turned away 3 times because ‘lack of staff, systems crashed and technical difficulties or we shut early’ you mans are ruining your rep, so disappointed @NandosUK.
While another user said:
Nando's is closed and I'm not ok.
To calm down public outrage about their closing, another spokesperson issued an urgent message to loyal customers. When in conversation with The Sun, they said:
Please bear with us whilst we do everything we can to get our famous PERi-PERi chicken back where it belongs – on your plates!
Food shortages in the UK
So far, Nando's has not disclosed which items on their menu are affected or when they’ll be open for business but they are not the first restaurant chain that has been impacted. Last week, Kentucky Fried Chicken faced similar operational issues because of food shortages as well.
The Mirror reported that apart from the pandemic, a shortage of HGV drivers has disrupted food supplies across supermarkets and retailers. Arla, Danish multinational cooperative and dairy giant, said in June:
There is a real crunch this summer because of COVID causing a backlog of new drivers passing their tests, changes to tax rules, some drivers from EU countries returning home, some others on furlough and other factors.
There has been a growing shortage of haulage drivers for many years. It is really important that we attract many new drivers into the sector.
