Food Supply Chains Starting to Fail Over ‘Pingdemic,’ Meat Industry Says

A message to self-isolate, with one day of required isolation remaining, is displayed on the NHS coronavirus contact tracing app on a mobile phone, in London, on July 15, 2021. Yui Mok/PA

Food supply chains are “starting to fail” because of workers isolating over coronavirus contacts, an industry leader has warned, as he criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s effort to ease the “pingdemic.”

A meat industry trade body said it cannot rely on Johnson’s new exemption for some fully vaccinated critical workers because the bar has been set “very, very high.”