Inflation, recruiting and retaining staff key threats to food firms

Food sector businesses almost universally upbeat about prospects for growth this year despite challenges - PwC / Love Irish Food survey via IrishTimesBiz

However, he added that “there has been a noticeable improvement since last year” with businesses more confident about their prospects.“Pressure remains to recruit and retain staff, adding to the cost of labour,” he confirmed. Half of those surveyed said they were struggling to hire workers and warned that labour shortages threatened their businesses’ future growth.

The 2023 Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Food Barometer found that 95 per cent of the 76 companies surveyed this month and last for the study were optimistic about the future. Three-quarters said economic growth would either improve or remain the same this year “Greater economic volatility” remained a key threat for 56 per cent of those who took part, but this was down from 86 per cent in 2022. Some 63 per cent of them plan to spend money on making their companies’ operations more efficient over the year ahead, making this the number-one area for investment in the industry.

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