Biscuit maker McVitie’s warns of price hikes
McVities’ owner Pladis Global has said prices on popular household names could increase as much as five per cent.
The company said it had experienced higher costs due to staff absences, increased ingredient costs and higher labour costs.
Pladis’s UK managing director, David Murray, said: “Omicron disruption, absenteeism, and the rising cost of business going forward present a big challenge for us.
“At the end of the day, like in many other categories, it will flow through to higher prices.”
“We’ve dealt with substantial challenges in the past in the food industry – whether it’s natural disasters, inflation in the economic crisis,” he said.
“It’s the compression of the challenge, combined with the scale of some of them [that is different this time],” he added.
It comes as inflation increased 5.1 per cent in the 12 months to November, up from 4.2 per cent the month before. Inflation hit highest level since September 2011.