Supply Frustrations!

2 min 5 sec read

We have been facing some real challenges with wine supply over the last few months and that has impacted on the availability and timings of some of your orders. 

So, in the spirit of openness and transparency, I thought I would give you some background to the issues we are facing every day, trying our very best to get wine out to our most important people - YOU! 

Firstly – CUSTOMS CLEARANCE – this is by far the issue with most ramifications. Post Brexit importers are facing logistical nightmares and delays trying to get goods into the country. All importers are reporting lines of containers waiting to clear customs. If a container is full of one product for one customer, it might take up to 40 minutes for a customs agent or clerk to complete the new paperwork required by the UK authorities post Brexit. However, if that container is a consolidated load from many different source locations, with different products going to different end locations, then it could take the same customs agent/clerk days, or even weeks to populate the forms to the standards required by UK authorities – hence the car park of lorries and containers at UK ports that you may have seen in the news?

Secondly – TRANSPORT – again this issue made the news recently. There is a shortage of 100,000 HGV drivers in the UK at the moment, due to the change in free movement of people post Brexit. This is due to a lot of EU drivers NOT coming to the UK to drive/work anymore because of the additional COVID testing & potential isolation. So – an additional layer of problems for haulage companies to deal with. The cherry on the cake has been the fact that the DRIVING TEST CENTRES have been closed so people looking to become a lorry drivers have struggled to get tuition and testing at any time through the pandemic!

Thirdly – DRY GOODS – there is a global shortage of both glass and cardboard at the moment – probably due to less recycling taking place. The wine industry uses a lot of both and this is slowing down bottling lines capacity and finished goods availability.

We have been trying to cope as best we can and I really didn’t want to share any of this bad news with you but, by the looks of things, the situation isn't going to change any time soon.

The GOOD NEWS is that, even though all wine suppliers are facing the same problems, I’m happy that we, at Vino Fandango, have the resources and partners to weather this storm better than most! We will certainly do our utmost to continue to bring you the most interesting range of wines from around the world, direct to your doorstep.

So, we thank you for your patience and know that we will do our very best to satisfy all your vinous needs as quickly as we possibly can. 

Cheers!

Alan