News / UK SME wholesalers gazumped for haulage capacity as driver shortage bites

Photo 184831925 © Ilya Nasakin | Dreamstime.com

UK wholesalers have found themselves caught out by the country’s worsening driver shortage and are now seeing major retail chains gazumping them on securing capacity.

MD of the National Buying Consortium David Lunt said his members, mostly wholesalers, were unaware of the severity of the problem until “the last few weeks” as suppliers sought to reassure their customers that capacity would not run dry.

“We only realised how serious it was when a supplier, who normally fulfils hundreds of orders a day, ...