I am so fed up of a lack of food in shops.

[OutofEverything]

This has been going on for a few years but is only getting worse. I had to go to 3 supermarkets before I found some eggs. No lettuce at all, a few packs of salad tomatoes available in one supermarket, loads of empty spaces in the fruit and veg section, and in ASDA even the freezers had loads of empty spaces.

Before anyone says yes I know we will not starve, there is enough actual food. But a visit to a supermarket now is a lottery about what will be available and what is missing. And more and more I am having to visit multiple shops to get absolute basics.

pretty much the story of our fresh fruit and veg section in Sainsbury’s on Thursday morning Natsku. It was slightly, but not much better this morning. There were a couple of peppers left and the other fruit and veg didn’t look quite so empty.

@Clavinova prepare for many posters to simply avoid those sorts of inconvenient facts & continue to blame it all on Brexit

@Clavinova prepare for many posters to simply avoid those sorts of inconvenient facts & continue to blame it all on Brexit

I expect U.K. customers would be delighted if the worst they were dealing with was being limited to two packs of the veg they want.

sydneysunset

Indeed.

News item from Denmark on the shortages:
www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/koldt-vejr-i-sydeuropa-giver-mangel-paa-groentsager-i-supermarkeder

Surprising no one has suggested* that having empty shelves in supermarkets decreases their revenue per sq. m (or square chains for the Brexiteers). That isn't going to be sustainable in the long run. Every day a shelf is empty is "that much less" that can be made in turnover which is "that much less" that can go into shareholders profits, wages, etc etc.

Notice it makes no difference here as to why the shelves are empty. They just ain't good business.

*if they have on this thread I missed it, and apologise.

I know for fact that every big supermarket will know to the fraction of a penny how much every cubic centimetre of every store costs and returns. (And if they don't then their shareholders should be asking some very awkward questions).

I agree.

Personally I would blame in on the race for Net Zero.

Take a drive around any rural area and you'll see acres of prime farmland covered with solar panels.
Farmers are so tired of bring held to ransom by the supermarkets they are growing solar panels instead.

And you think we've got problems? The Dutch are in a worse mess.
Net Zero has a lot to answer for.

www.tsln.com/news/food-control-dutch-farming-on-the-verge-of-a-disaster-as-government-pushes-to-close-3000-farms/#:~:text=Ag%20Events%20Calendar-,Food%20control%3A%20Dutch%20farming%20on%20the%20verge%20of%20a%20disaster,pushes%20to%20close%203%2C000%20farms&text=FARMERS%20in%20the%20Netherlands%20are,Union%20plans%20to%20reduce%20emissions.

Seems a lot of trouble to go to before putting them in the bin.

Southern turnips (and parsnips) are just cattle food - horrible things.

Northern and Scottish turnips (or as southerners call them "swedes") are, however delicious.

@ChungusBoi , also : there is so much red tape and that costs so much money that for farmers in Europe it's very much easier to sell their produce where they live + neighbouring countries. So that, and also European drivers now often have to drive back home empty. No UK goods to bring to Europe due to decline in demand because everything became much more expensive with extra taxes etc. after Brexit.

Got tomatoes today, but absolutely no milk at all.

The Guardian reported yesterday that UK farmers are refusing to plant more apple & pear trees because supermarkets won't pay enough, and it seems that this is one of the issues with the shortage too: the price of vegetables rises but supermarkets won't raise their costs.

A few weeks ago posters on MN were mocking how American egg prices had gone up because of avian flu--but that's what happens there, when the costs go up, supermarkets pay it and pass along the costs. UK supermarkets are so keen to hold the line on costs that they let the shelves go empty.

But costs have gone up here.

Sorry, I should have said prices. They don't want to put prices up, so won't pay more, even though they have to.

The Guardian reported yesterday that UK farmers are refusing to plant more apple & pear trees

Surely that's more a worry for our grandchildren ?

Anyway, aren't apples and pears grown by grafting, not natural growing ? Rootstock and all that ?

They're grafted onto rootstock, but the trees still need replacing eventually. You don't just graft onto the old rootstock.

the problems won't be immediate, but they will come far more quickly than our grandchildren. They're refusing to replace trees now and in the next few years.

I have read that some farmers refuse to plant more because they can't find any help for the harvest. Produce stands rotting on the fields. "Someone" sent all the non-British people back to their country of origin. It's explained as a necessary part of Brexit.

If the people of the UK want to eat they can either keep pursuing cheap imports from abroad (hello US trade deal) and hope no one willing to pay a better price comes along, or they can just start to pay enough to cover the cost of home production. The reality is that the price of food is going up and staying up so we'll all just have to spend less on other things.

Eat seasonally
nobody has to eat tomato and cucumber and won’t starve without it
we should be eating seasonal produce which grows in Abundance in the winter here in Great Britain
this includes root veg such as swede turnip carrots ect
we all want a Mediterranean diet in the middle of winter in a Northern European island (Great Britain )
there is an abundance of food in the shops , try living in countries where going to the supermarket is something that can only be imagined in one’s dreams
plenty of veg in Asda yesterday albeit no tomato’s but so what
same with Tesco Asda Sainsbury’s full of meat fish veg and tinned- the usual
I don’t see what you are complaining about
have you noticed that many cultures don’t even shop at supermarkets, I live in a area which is predominantly populated by Arabs and they do not shop in supermarkets I’ve observed but rather shops and markets selling culturally appropriate food to them which are full of delicious ingredients including exotic fruit and veg we wouldn’t ordinarily find in traditional supermarkets, try those

@BananaCocktails You’re talking non sense. Many who have full time jobs (or rely on online shopping) don’t have the time to go to different shops and markets to do their weekly shopping, unlike these people you are talking about, many of whom (women) don’t work for cultural reasons.

Anyway this is no longer a problem for me as I have moved back to my home country in continental Europe where there is absolutely no shortage of food. It’s a country notoriously known for its huge supermarkets squeezing farmers yet the fruits & vegetables corners are awash with what it is being in short supply in the UK. And this the case in every part of the country (I have to travel everywhere due to my job).

The difference between my country and the UK is called Brexit. I only left last year and came back to the UK recently and was shocked at how prices have increased. Prices of everything, not just food, but restaurants and services too. And my country is not a cheap one! My friends who have stayed in the UK are still waiting for their salaries to increase (as that’s what they were told would be one of the positive consequences of Brexit) but they are still waiting, their salaries are broadly stagnating so they are losing purchasing power.

We import most of our turnips. We don’t grow enough to feed the population here and the cattle. So eating seasonally isn’t really going to work.

@BananaCocktails We don't grow any salad and not very much fruit at this time of year.

And we don't grow enough for even half of us.

If everyone ate completely seasonally we would have run out of far more things than we already have.

We grow less than ever these days because now they don't have their EU subsidies farmers don't have the cash to risk on crops they won't get a return on because they don't have the workers to pick them and/or inflation has made them too expensive for people to buy.

Things are likely to get worse before get get better because supply chains that are stretched all the way to Africa or South America are far more vulnerable than the nice short local ones we used to be in before Brexit.

. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/25/vegetable-shortages-in-uk-could-be-tip-of-iceberg-says-farming-union?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

You have to be more imaginative when shopping. We lived overseas in the '80s and '90s in countries where food supply was erratic. We just made up the weeks menu as we shopped dependent on what was available. Makes life a lot less stressful than going to a half empty supermarket with a rigid food plan.

Seasonal veg in the UK at the moment includes

Potatoes
Cabbage - savoy, red, white
onions
carrots
leeks
sprouts
beetroot
parsnips
swede
turnip
garlic
cauliflower
purple sprouting
celeriac

....in addition to all the tinned, bottled and frozen veg available. And anyway, I bought tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and aubergines in Tesco yesterday, without issue.

Can you imagine the whining if there was a real crisis !

You might want to look at the labels at where your product is coming from @MintJulia

U.K. supplies of some of those are long gone already.