Fruit and veg shortages

[Buttalapasta]

I'm not in the UK but I keep on seeing pictures on Twitter of empty supermarket shelves for fruit and veg. Is it really a problem or are they isolated issues?

No real problems here (North West) I'm noticing more gaps particularly at the end of the day but there's still plenty to buy. I think part of the problem is that over the past few decades we've become a little bit spoilt expecting vast quantities of food available 24 hours a day even though that led to a lot of waste. Now things are a little bit tighter it feels like a catastrophe.
It is expensive though!

No tomatoes in any supermarkets in Bristol unless you want 1970s hard, pale tasteless ones.

@Felicitythecat loads of us eat tomatoes year round, we have had access to wonderful tomatoes for years, until now, when we are left with the ones you describe (and they are why I hated tomatoes throughout my childhood).

I see it in my local aldi (notts/Lincs) all the time, I can never get cucumber and tomatoes. Eggs are never on the shelves either. Lil only I live rurally and there are usually lots of places selling them outside houses .

No peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce for over a week in my Aldi

farming today on the bbc talks about this this morning.

basicallly (in nonparticular order)

• adverse weather
• high cost of energy (greenhouses, harvest machines)
• high cost of labour
• strikes, especially ferry and customs staff strikes in france
• (super)markets not paying cost price for produce

no, funnily enough you don’t usually put tinned tomatoes in a salad or in a sandwich.
how about you try and avoid the need to panic buy on hearing of a shortage?

The above was a reply to this

why thank you for your concern @MissPoldark
it is noted

Not had this issue with Aldi, though some of their tomatoes were not as good as usual recently. Got three punnets of piccolo tomatoes in my click and collect order this week which are tasty. Have had no problem getting eggs. In Kent though loads of stuff is grown at Thanet Earth so it doesn't have to come far- at least in some months of the year. I did go to Sainsbury's on Saturday evening though and the fruit and veg section was rather post-apocalyptic.

There are no shortages of tomatoes, fruit or veg or eggs here in ireland whatsoever apart from M&S whose stock is increasingly unreliable these days so i generally don't bother anymore

So there are actually tomatoes, you just don't like them? 😆

No desperate shortages here. I'd cope if there were, though. We're past the stage of fussy kids and I don't care much which veg I eat-there is always some, and plenty of frozen.

Well said.

Doesn't help if a re opens requires particular items and you then have to replan mid shop. Tuna and tomato flan doesn't really work with swede or sprouts

@countrygirl99 but it's no good being so rigid with what you eat! Tinned sweetcorn can replace your tomato. Or just have jacket with beans and cheese one night! I don't understood this meal planning obsession, I just have whatever needs eating or whatever springs to mind when I'm in the shop.

Tuna and sweetcorn flan🤢. I like both but together they look like vomit.
Meal planning is quite important when you live 10 miles from a supermarket, don't have space for a big freezer, hate food waste and need to stick to a budget.

And sweetcorn wouldn't work in that recipe either- too dry too replace a layer of tomatoes.

celery is also hard to come by at the moment. We use it a lot in cooking, and haven't been able to get a 'bunch' for about 6 months. Have to get the precut sticks, but they are also hit and miss whether they are in stock - I also think they go off quicker than the 'bunch'. (not sure what you call it 😝)

In Sainsbury's today they were fine for bananas, lettuce, and easy peelers (loads of easy peelers). But no berries of any kind, and only two tomato punnets. They'd obviously been trying to bulk out the shelves with what they could get hold of because the broccoli section has more than doubled.

I feel like we won't run out of fresh food in the UK - because it can't be stockpiled as easily as loo roll thank goodness - but we might have to get less discriminating. Like I may have to stop being an easy peeler snob.

Also I bought the last two salmon fillets (which were yellow stickered yay) only to get them home and notice they expired yesterday, so supermarkets are maybe getting less discriminating too.

East Mids.

Today I went to Waitrose and the Co-op.

Waitrose was fully stocked with tomatoes, salad, berries, veg generally. No obvious gaps on the shelves.

Co-op didn’t have any tomatoes or cucumbers but seemed to have everything else. It was drowning in blueberries. Not only were they in the blueberry section but there was one whole fridge unit full of them!

R4 news earlier said Asda and Morrison's are limiting the amount that can be bought on some fruits and veg because of short supply.

@QueryA oh I can send you celery!! We did have a “drought” of it before Xmas when I couldn’t get any for a few weeks but now the local supermarket has filled all the gaps left by tomatoes and peppers with celery. ALL the celery!!

Our Waitrose had had the salad section shut off completely since Friday, notice says “sorry awaiting supplies”.