Former Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King has warned supermarkets to prepare for potential shortages in their workforce should the coronavirus outbreak get worse.

King, who is a non-executive director at Marks & Spencer, said sudden and large-scale reductions in staff would pose a far bigger challenge for supermarkets and other retailers than panic buying would.

Speaking to Sky, King said: “I think labour is the first thing [to worry about] – many fresh food production systems are dependent on labour on a day-to-day basis.”

The former Sainsbury’s chief executive’s warning comes after the government said it had contingency plans in place for the economy to cope with up to a fifth of all people to be off sick should the virus spread.

King said: “If you look at some of the guidance the government is giving today, that perhaps up to 20% of people will be off self-isolating or perhaps even ill, then that will have a material effect. In supermarkets that will be a bigger challenge than panic buying, for sure.”

While addressing the issues sickness in staff would play for supermarkets, King said that food supply chains are already well set up to handle staff absences through sickness.

“The protocols around being people being absent are already very strong,” he said. “You’re not allowed, if you’ve had sickness, to come into work and you have to stay off for a quarantine period.

“So, although we may be talking about something that’s extreme in the context of what has been coped with before, it’s not so materially different that the system doesn’t already have processes in place.”

As of yesterday, there were 373 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and six deaths.

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