I know over the last few weeks Ive not been getting some selection of Tomatoes , now other Fruit and veg are in short supply
Asda and Morrisons are putting limits on purchases of certain fruit and vegetables as supermarkets face shortages of fresh produce.
Asda is limiting sales of items such as tomatoes, peppers and salad bags to a maximum quantity of three.
Meanwhile Morrisons will put limits of two on products like cucumbers.
Pictures of empty supermarket shelves have been circulating on social media, although some retailers say they will not be restricting sales.
Extreme weather in Spain and north Africa, including floods, snow and hail, have affected harvests.
An Asda spokesperson said: “Like other supermarkets, we are experiencing sourcing challenges on some products that are grown in southern Spain and north Africa.”
The supermarket said other fruit and vegetables affected included cucumbers, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflowers and raspberry punnets.
Morrisons said tomatoes, lettuce and peppers were affected at its shops.
However, Tesco said it was not putting buying limits on fresh produce.
And a Marks & Spencer spokesman said that while the group was not immune from supply issues, it had mitigated them by sourcing from different markets.
Why are they limiting lettuce? As far as I am aware our lettuce is not imported, yet Waitrose have not had curly lettuce (or round lettuce) for at least a couple of months - instead I am having to buy iceberg lettuce which just tastes like water! (And no doubt is equally devoid of any nutrients)
Makes you think they just want people to eat rubbish food to make everyone sick/obese!
Unusually cold weather in southern Spain has affected the supply of some fresh produce, while in Morocco floods have affected yields and storms have led to ferries being delayed or cancelled.
In the winter months the UK imports around 95% of its tomatoes and 90% of its lettuces, most of it from the affected region, according to the BRC (British Retail Consortium).`
The produce which is being “rationed” is not the kind of stuff I buy at this time of year, anyway.
I tend to try to stick to locally grown seasonal fresh fruits & veg.
I don’t think there is much UK grown Lettuce available in the Winter months - at this time of year, about 90% of Lettuce in the UK shops will have been imported from EU.
Blimey Omah,i didnt realise we imported such an amount.
But business is business i suppose.
Morrisons had a 6 pk of tomatoes for 99p yesterday,up from 66p,they can keep them the robbing so n so`s.
I don’t know why they have to limit on salad , its not something you can stock up on cause it don’t have a long life …
Ive enjoyed a salad this week, made a change,… ordered two baby lettuce , a cucumber and toms in my shop for tomorrow,
I am surprised that anybody would be surprised to learn that, in the Winter months, the type of fruit and veg that does not grow in low Winter UK temperatures is imported - I would be more surprised if I saw supermarkets selling tomatoes and lettuce in February which had been grown in UK.
I thought the same as you - I doubt many people would want to buy more than one bag of fresh salad at a time - nobody is likely to want to stockpile this type of food as you cannot store it for long or freeze it.
Sorry for the stupid question: what is a “bag of” salad? In Germany we buy one (or more) salads, there is no bag, could you please be so kind to explain? Thenk you very much.
Ah I see. We have those ones too here in Germany. As I try to avoid plastic by all means I was not aware of those. Thank you for the picture and the effort
We don’t grow much salad here in the winter, it is too costly to heat the greenhouses.
Most of our salad in the winter comes from Spain/Holland they have had bad weather high fuel costs limiting supplies.
Some salad is now coming from Morocco , yuk 5 days old before it even gets on the shelves.
We grow root veg which is stored , and lots of cabbage and broccoli here so that should be fresher than salads.
I have a big gripe about the scrapping of ‘best before’ dates, it is resulting in poorer quality produce being sold to customers. The age of produce is now indicated by codes which only the supermarket staff can read, I think because we can’t ‘see’ the age of most produce , instead of older produce being reduced it is being left on sale and sent out in orders . My Waitrose delivery certainly has poor quality produce now that I never experienced before.
I recently had chives from Morocco that were dated and 3 days out of date , a substitution for potted chives . I think the packers are also taking less care now they know most produce has no best before dates.
I have of course complained to Waitrose .
Roll on spring when I can grow my own salad leaves .
We’re definitely being gaslighted on the cause of these shortages, because there are plenty of tomatoes etc in the supermarkets in Europe
So why aren’t they reaching here, who knows. A marketing ruse to put the price up? Brexit means EU countries get supplied first? They are supplying local markets first? They are trying to distract us from prices going up everywhere else?
Re lettuce, @Azz , Morrisons and Asda are my best source for a nice, soft, ordinary round lettuce
Or you could do what I do all year, grow peasprouts on the window sill from Bigga dried peas. Lovely for salad and so cheap!
Guernsey and Jersey used to supply good quality tomatoes to the UK before Brussels put a stop to that. In fact most imported foods were sourced from elsewhere. The trouble with being in the EU is, you are limited where you can trade, so they’ve got us by the short and curlies.
In Holland they are persecuting all the farmers and wanting them to sell up. The farmers there have been protesting for months and asking for our help, but that’s something else you won’t see on the BBC.
no I didnt know about Holland Farmers ,
I know when we was part of the EU our Farmers were paid to Set Aside fields growing nothing in them …Before Boris got outed from PM he told our Farmers to start growing in those fields again.
