Shares warned of supply chain challenges in the food industry as far back as May last year, yet it took announcements from fast-food chains KFC and Nando’s and supermarket giant Tesco (TSCO) for the penny to finally drop. Broader supply chain issues pose a threat to company earnings and therefore to share prices.

Not only are there shortages of goods on the shelves, the combined effects of Brexit and the pandemic have led to a shortage of workers. Walk down any high street and you are likely to spy shop after shop looking to hire staff.

It’s a similar story in the hospitality industry, where tens of thousands of employees – typically young and low-paid, many of them non-UK citizens – quit the industry and in some cases the country to find work elsewhere.

As well as struggling for staff, hotels, bars and restaurants are now seeing a knock-on effect among their suppliers. According to the Financial Times, hotels across the UK, including some operated by FTSE 100 firm InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), have been forced to limit guest numbers after ‘a boom in domestic holidays collided with a chronic shortage of laundry staff’.

According to IHG, the laundry supply chain ‘cuts across staffing challenges, distribution and logistics’, causing some operators to limit daily bed linen changes. Other hoteliers are limiting occupancy ‘to cope with staffing and laundry constraints’, the publication said.

Alert to the situation, specialist workwear and laundry group Johnson Service (JSG:AIM) brought all its staff back from furlough and recruited a significant number of employees from March, as volumes in its hotel, restaurant and catering business increased dramatically, but other companies were clearly less on the ball.

Every industry, from construction to engineering and energy to retail, is now flagging supply chain constraints due to a shortage of stock, delivery drivers and even sea containers as a risk to their full year outlook.

Electrical specialist Luceco (LUCE) estimates its annual input costs have risen by £20 million or 15% due to hikes of between 40% and 70% in the prices of copper and plastic and a five-fold increase in the cost of renting sea containers to transport its products from China.

The big concern is that rising prices caused by supply chain issues and higher input costs will reduce the spending power of households.

Add in the ending of Government support for furlough and of the £20 per week universal credit uplift next month and the impact on the less well-off is likely to be even more brutal. None of which makes for a merry Christmas for retail or hospitality stocks.

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