The shorta
ge of HGV drivers has been a national story for months, often with details of how the shortage is affecting businesses and costs. The UK Flour Millers 2021 delivery survey, published on Friday 26 November, highlights how severe the impact of driver shortages has been on wheat delivery performance to mills, with one in five deliveries not arriving on the scheduled day, and less than half of deliveries arriving within their allocated timeslot.
The delivery survey is carried out every two years so comparisons against previous years can be made. The 2021 delivery performance is the worst since the survey began in 2005. Whilst a trend of declining delivery performance has been seen since 2012, the drop from 2019 to 2021 is the most significant yet. It is not the case that the decline in delivery performance is linked to mill turnaround times, as the survey shows that these have been steadily improving for the majority of sites since 2017.
Alongside delivery performance, the full reports include information on rejections, turnaround times and grain passport completion. Benchmarking reports will be sent to individual member companies that will make it easier to compare their site result(s) against the industry average.
