Poultry powerhouse 2Sisters lifts supermarket prices by 70m to absorb Labour's National Insurance shock

"2Sisters Food Group, the West Bromwich-based business founded by Midlands entrepreneur Ranjit Boparan (pictured), confirmed it has passed on the entire additional cost to Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and other major retail customers. The increase, the company said, was the direct consequence of Rachel Reeves's decision last spring to raise employers' National Insurance contributions and lift the national minimum wage, measures the British Retail Consortium warned at the time would make price rises "inevitable"."

"For a business that supplies roughly one in every three poultry products sold in the UK, slaughtering and processing 10.4 million birds a week from a network of more than 700 farms, even a marginal tweak to employment costs reverberates a long way down the till receipt. 2Sisters employs 13,500 people, making it one of the most heavily exposed companies in the country to changes in payroll taxation."

"Mr Boparan, long dubbed the "chicken king" of British food, has built a sprawling operation that touches almost every fridge in the land, and the group's pricing decisions are watched closely by Whitehall and the Competition and Markets Authority alike. Concern over the wider chilling effect of the National Insurance increase has spread well beyond the food sector."

"Malcolm Gomersall, chief executive of Grant Thornton's UK business, said this week that the rise was "not great for businesses who are looking to grow". He added: "There is a hidden cost of growth and if I could wave a wand, it would be to try and make it easy to""

2Sisters Food Group confirmed it has passed the full additional cost of £70m to Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, and other major retailers. The company linked the increase to Rachel Reeves’s spring decision to raise employers’ National Insurance contributions and lift the national minimum wage. The British Retail Consortium had warned that the measures would make price rises inevitable. 2Sisters supplies about one in every three poultry products sold in the UK, processing 10.4 million birds a week from a network of more than 700 farms. With 13,500 employees, the business is highly exposed to payroll taxation changes, and its pricing decisions are closely watched by regulators. Grant Thornton’s UK chief executive said the National Insurance rise is not good for businesses seeking to grow and creates a hidden cost of growth.

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