Soup shortages in UK supermarkets following strike action at a major manufacturer

Supplies of many own-brand supermarket soups are missing from retailers after workers at a factory have walked out over pay - is your favourite product affected?

Many own-brand soup products are disappearing from supermarket shelves amid industrial action at a manufacturing site.

Ongoing strikes are taking place at own-label supplier Bakkovar based in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in a row over pay.

The firm makes items such as soups, salads and ready meals for major supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda - and
trade magazine The Grocer's data has shown that soup supplies have now started to run low.

Tesco is the worst affected supermarket, with 50% of its 44 chilled soup products unavailable at the time of writing. Out of stock products included 13 of Tesco’s private label 600g soups, such as Carrot & Coriander, Cream of Tomato and Finest Keralan Inspired Chicken Soup.

Nine out of 35 were not available at Asda, 11 out of 63 were missing at Sainsbury's and eight out of 46 were out of stock at Waitrose.

Morrisons was the least affected by shortages, with just two out of 28 products missing from shelves: Morrisons Cream of Tomato Soup 600g and Covernt Garden Mushroom 560g.

These issues are partly being caused by the ongoing action at Bakkavor, which saw over 700 workers, members of Unite, who walked last month after rejecting an "insulting" pay offer.

Bakkavor offered 7.8% pay rises to its lowest paid workers, 6.4% to other workers and recently offered an additional one-off payment of £50.

However, Unite's General Secretary Sharon Graham said "our members are rightly angry after years of below-inflation pay rises, the most recent offer is an insult".

Bakkavor said it had "simplied" its customer offer as a result of the industrial action. The firm's spokesperson said: "Due to industrial action at our Spalding site, we have a shortfall of labour and have therefore simplified our customer offer.

“We are maintaining availability of our customers’ favourite soup products and hope to return to supplying our full range as soon as possible. In overall terms, we continue to supply around 85% of our normal volume from this site.”

A spokeswoman for Waitrose said: “We work with a number of suppliers across the category, so have a range of soups – both fresh and tinned – available to customers.
“We’re really sorry if some products aren’t available at the moment, but our partners are always happy to help customers find alternatives.”

Tesco has put out “temporarily out-of-stock” notices on its shelves in affected stores, but had not responded to requests to comment.
Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons were also approached for comment.