Food and Drink Federation offers cautious welcome to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s latest UK budget

Published Oct 27, 2021

Tridge summary

The UK's Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has expressed a guarded positive response to Chancellor Rishi Sunak's autumn budget, which includes a £150 billion spending plan and reforms to the business rates system with a 50% discount for retail and hospitality businesses. Despite these positive aspects, the FDF has highlighted concerns over the UK's labor shortage, supply chain issues, and the lack of support for logistics chains. The budget comes as the UK economy is predicted to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, growing at 6.5% this year, despite challenges such as Brexit. However, the FDF has raised concerns about inflation and the absence of measures to address it.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

The UK’s Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has offered a cautious welcome to chancellor Rishi Sunak’s autumn budget today, which promised support for many areas of the economy with a spending round totalling £150 billion, reports Neill Barston. Among the core measures confirmed was a commitment to reforming the present, much criticised business rates system, with a 50% discount for hard-hit retail and hospitality firms, many of which have struggled amid the pandemic and lockdown measures. While the FDF, which represents a wide range of businesses from across the sector, including those within the confectionery, snacks and bakery markets, felt there were promising elements to the chancellor’s autumn statement, it stressed concerns regarding the ongoing labour shortage that has resulted in major supply chain challenges and staffing shortages at retailing hospitality venues across the country. The latest budget comes as the UK economy was predicted to return to pre-covid levels by ...

Source: Confectioneryproduction