Own-label dips are disappearing from supermarket shelves amid the ongoing strike by workers at Bakkavor Spalding.
The ongoing strike action has already caused a shortage of chilled soup in the supermarkets, with 80% of Tesco’s portfolio unavailable last week. Despite slight improvement, shortages still stood at 51.1% as The Grocer went to press this week [Assosia 12 w/e 13 November 2024].
The out-of-stock products include 13 Tesco private-label 600g soups, such as Carrot & Coriander, Cream of Tomato and Finest Keralan Inspired Chicken, along with lines from New Covent Garden and Yeo Valley.
Tesco has displayed “temporarily out-of-stock” notices in affected stores.
Dipping availability
Earlier this week, the FT reported that some UK supermarkets were grappling with a shortage of taramasalata due to disrupted production at the Spalding factory.
However, The Grocer understands the strike has also impacted supply of other chilled dips, with cheese & chive and houmous lines disappearing from supermarket chillers over recent days.
Again, Tesco appears to be the worst impacted of the supermarkets, with 13 out of 38 (34.2%) of its private-label dips missing from shelves.
Products missing from the retailer include Houmous Selection 180g and Reduced Fat Sour Cream & Chive Dip 200g – in addition to Taramasalata 200g.
The Grocer understands that Waitrose is also being impacted by reduced supply from Bakkavor. Its own-label Onion & Garlic Dip 200g, Cheese & Chive Dip 200g and Taramasalata 200g were unavailable online as The Grocer went to press.
Managing supply
A spokesman for Bakkavor played down the issue, stating: "There has been a short disruption to our supply of taramasalata, but drawing on the skills based across its 21 UK sites, production steps up again next week.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Opie, director of food & sustainability at the BRC, stressed that retailers were “adept at managing supply to ensure impact on customers is kept to a minimum and they can purchase goods as normal”.
However, one industry insider said the shortages highlighted “the need to have more than one supplier of these dips”.
“We saw the same empty shelves in the past with salmonella scares,” they said. Bakkavor recalled several chilled guacamole products supplied to The Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in 2016 due to the possible presence of salmonella.
It comes after Bakkavor last week offered its Spalding workers a £350 bonus in an attempt to end the ongoing strike action.
Bakkavor CEO Mike Edwards stressed the bonus and rejected pay offer were “entirely fair based on the context in which we are operating”.
Edwards himself was awarded an annual bonus in the sum of £875k in the year ending 30 December 2023. His total remuneration over the period was £2.4m, according to the company’s accounts.
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