Industry's pandemic plans

The government aims to work with processors on plans to secure food and drink supply in crises such as a flu pandemic.

If such an event did occur, safeguarding distribution would be crucial as many supply chain staff could be taken sick.

John Hutchings, chief executive of the Food Storage & Distribution Federation, said it was talking to various departments on the issue. "We're working with retailers, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport and attempting with the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) to work with processors on contingency planning for the whole supply chain."

Hutchings said retailers had already devised a broad plan through the British Retail Consortium and the Cabinet Office was close to publishing a plan for food and drink logistics firms. The government also aimed to work through the FDF to draw up a plan for processors. "The thing needs to be holistic. It's no good retailers saying they are going to transport food if manufacturers are not going to be able to make it." A meeting with the FDF is being set up for some time in the spring, he said.

"There's a lot of ignorance about a flu pandemic. We went out to our members and asked them if they have contingency plans. Some said: 'If we're short of drivers, we'll just go to an agency' - but are agency workers going to be immune to flu?"

An emergency would demand increased production and distribution of longer life products for stockpiling, such as ambient and frozen food, while fresh and chilled food would be scaled back.

With chilled trailers unused, the contingency plan for food and drinks logistics considers moving them to hospitals to store the corpses of disease victims.