The UK’s supply chain crisis could stick around for the next two years, Associated British Ports (ABP) has warned.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, ABP’s chief executive Henrik Pedersen said that when there are congested container ports around the world, it takes “a very long time to turn it around.”

The British port operator, which is the biggest in the UK, has said that existing supply chain issues could last until 2023.

“We have a shortage of truck drivers in the UK, and in other countries too, so the problem is in the shipping leg and the road leg,” Pedersen told the newspaper.

The chief exec’s comments come as retailers across the UK and around the world face significant supply chain cost increases.

Profit warnings issued by UK listed companies in consumer-facing sectors, including retail and grocery producers, accounted for 33 per cent of all warnings in the third quarter of the year as rising energy prices, supply bottlenecks, and labour shortages spread across the economy.

In October, Ikea said that it believed the supply chain crisis would continue into next year.

Last month, e-commerce giant Amazon revealed that it expects to rack up billions of dollars worth of extra costs to address supply chain disruption and labour shortages.

Multinational consumer goods corporation P&G, which owns a wide range of well-known beauty, grooming, and home care brands including Head & Shoulders and Ariel, expects to lose $2.3 billion in expenses this year. The company blamed increased raw material costs alongside higher energy prices.

Danone said that there would be further inflationary pressures in the coming year and that operating margins would be safeguarded by price hikes and productivity increases.

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