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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To say that the majority of UK fruit and veg is awful in comparison to other countries?

132 replies

MissHoneyPenny · 05/05/2025 16:42

Why is it so expensive and (mostly) of poor quality when compared to places like Spain and France? I understand climate obviously plays into this but even things that can be grown well here like carrots and potatoes seem poor quality unless you pay top price at a farmers market or organic store.

I shop at a range of supermarkets from Aldi to M&S and none seem to be particularly great.

OP posts:
Daisiesanddaffodils24 · 05/05/2025 17:55

I do agree, however I also remember going to Florida in the summer and there was very little fruit and veg in the supermarkets and NO oranges which I thought they were famous for!

HmmNot · 05/05/2025 17:58

You can get great fruit and veg here if you venture outside the supermarket and mainly eat the stuff that actually grows here.

If you live in a city, local shops in areas with significant Turkish communities (or frankly any nationality other than British 😂😭) often have decent veg.

Bologneselove · 05/05/2025 17:59

DiggyDoodad · 05/05/2025 17:38

That's not been my experience. Fruit and veg that I've bought in Spain, Italy and the Canary Islands has often been very inferior compared with what I can get in my local supermarkets in the UK. However, I was not buying in big towns/cities but in very isolated rural communities with tiny shops where the fruit and veg section is one little mesh shelf with maybe half a dozen slightly squishy tomatoes, a couple of brownish bananas, a few potatoes, a couple of giant onions and maybe a beetroot or two. None of it would be deemed fit for sale in my local Sainsbury's!

I agree, a few years ago I fancied cherries but didn’t bother as the price was extortionate, as was that of watermelon.

Meadowfinch · 05/05/2025 18:06

This weekend, we've had asparagus with hollandaise, carrots, buttered swede, leeks, new potatoes with mint. Rhubarb and cream. All fresh and great. British & in season.

Imported tomatoes, polytunnel lettuce and greenhouse strawberries are never going to taste great no matter where you are.

BarneyRonson · 05/05/2025 18:08

MugPlate · 05/05/2025 17:45

We have way better turnips. Best turnips in the world, probably.
Eat more turnips.

quite literally never eaten a turnip. What is it like?

soupyspoon · 05/05/2025 18:09

God I nearly started a thread about this recently

Yes OP completely

Tomatoes watery and tasteless, we try to grow our own but thats only for a few months a year, cucumbers watery and tasteless, the variety we just dont have. It makes me sick actually just how bad our diet is because of the availability of good fresh produce.

downhere · 05/05/2025 18:10

Buy local organic seasonal fruit and veg & it will be good. Mass produced cheap out of season stuff from overseas is not good, no.

R0ckl0bster · 05/05/2025 18:10

Not my experience at all of France. Aside from French markets the supermarket fruit and veg is extortionate and often not that great.

JennyChawleigh · 05/05/2025 18:10

Jabberwok · 05/05/2025 17:33

It not just you who thinks this. Coming from a family of greengroucers (although none of us have been in the business for 30 years) I have some ideas as to why they are so poor.
You used to buy veg from the greengroucer near you who DIDN'T refrigerate everything, which means that the veg you pick up isn't as fresh and will be much older than what your local shop had. They would have picked it up from the market at about 5 this morning, the grower would have picked it yesterday.
We ate seasonally. When did you last see spring greens. Now food is flown in from spain/North Africa and further afield...again not as fresh.
The excellent old varieties which were packed with flavour have been replaced with crops that are more likely to be uniform and be ready all at the same time. Flavour is secondary to this.

Only thing is to grow your own.

I can buy spring greens at our local greengrocer and at local Sainsburys (in city suburb) so they're hardly rare.

GasperyJacquesRoberts · 05/05/2025 18:11

BarneyRonson · 05/05/2025 18:08

quite literally never eaten a turnip. What is it like?

A bit like swede but not quite as earthy. I chop them up and put them in casseroles etc.

TokyoKyoto · 05/05/2025 18:11

I think a lot of it is fine, and greengrocers have a better range than most supermarkets. What stands out from a few years ago is supply. The shelves in my local big Sainsbury’s are 1/3 empty at all times and the range is way down from pre-Brexit times.

soupyspoon · 05/05/2025 18:12

Ribenaberry12 · 05/05/2025 17:54

Yes! I don’t have a greengrocer near me but am going to start going to one on the way home from work to see if that makes a difference from what’s in the supermarket.

We cant afford our local greengrocer.

TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis · 05/05/2025 18:13

The one thing I'd say we do well is apples. Foreign apples look the part, but are too often wooly textured and tasteless.

Only British apples seem to be crisp and sweet.

R0ckl0bster · 05/05/2025 18:13

Meadowfinch · 05/05/2025 18:06

This weekend, we've had asparagus with hollandaise, carrots, buttered swede, leeks, new potatoes with mint. Rhubarb and cream. All fresh and great. British & in season.

Imported tomatoes, polytunnel lettuce and greenhouse strawberries are never going to taste great no matter where you are.

This!

We’ve had asparagus , jersey royals and rhubarb, carrots, tender stem broccoli , sugar snap peas, f peas … this weekend. All lovely and most in season.

BarneyRonson · 05/05/2025 18:14

GasperyJacquesRoberts · 05/05/2025 18:11

A bit like swede but not quite as earthy. I chop them up and put them in casseroles etc.

Oh ok! I love swede! I’ll give them a go, I think I’ve swerved them because my chopping strength is feeble and I assumed they’re little boulders. But I do love root veg and I can be adventurous for culinary delight.

Doitrightnow · 05/05/2025 18:15

I've noticed this too. Consequently I have a veg box from a local farmer from April to October which is relatively cheap, and forces me to eat a great range of in season veg which I'd normally never think to buy.

I also avoid things like strawberries and tomatoes in the supermarkets when out of season. Often buy frozen instead out of season.

Init4thecatz · 05/05/2025 18:19

Yeah, I hate the strawberries. I remember when I was a kid going 'pick your own' and they were SO sweet and juicy. The middle if the strawberry actually came out when you picked them.

They're grown now for speedy growth, pest resistance, hardiness, shape, etc rather than flavour sadly...

Nannyfannybanny · 05/05/2025 18:19

You need to eat seasonally
. tomatoes, cucumber Strawberries grown abroad are disgusting
Apples can be up to a year old,gased, irradiated,chilled to keep them fresh.
.

LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand · 05/05/2025 18:50

Scottish soft fruit - raspberries, strawberries, loganberries etc- are wonderful. Ayrshire potatoes likewise. I'm sure there's other veg I have forgotten but you can't beat the berries 😊

Jabberwok · 05/05/2025 18:59

JennyChawleigh · 05/05/2025 18:10

I can buy spring greens at our local greengrocer and at local Sainsburys (in city suburb) so they're hardly rare.

Well it's good to know that they are still out there. Personally not seen any for years, but then I don't really eat greens. In fact I didn't eat any veg until I was in my 20s. You can imagine how dad felt about that, him with a shop full of the stuff!

Neurodiversitydoctor · 05/05/2025 19:05

Jabberwok · 05/05/2025 17:33

It not just you who thinks this. Coming from a family of greengroucers (although none of us have been in the business for 30 years) I have some ideas as to why they are so poor.
You used to buy veg from the greengroucer near you who DIDN'T refrigerate everything, which means that the veg you pick up isn't as fresh and will be much older than what your local shop had. They would have picked it up from the market at about 5 this morning, the grower would have picked it yesterday.
We ate seasonally. When did you last see spring greens. Now food is flown in from spain/North Africa and further afield...again not as fresh.
The excellent old varieties which were packed with flavour have been replaced with crops that are more likely to be uniform and be ready all at the same time. Flavour is secondary to this.

Only thing is to grow your own.

This is true the best Strawberries I ever had were bought from a green grocer as they opened one June morning on my way home from a night shift.

frozendaisy · 05/05/2025 19:10

FKAT · 05/05/2025 17:45

The UK population expects food bills to be very low.

If the UK consumer is so powerful, we can demand and get cheap food, how come it doesn't work the same with other commodities like housing or gas?

There are more places to shop for food items, you can choose not to buy.
That isn't quite as easy with housing and gas.

As you are aware food prices are rising and rising, partly due to a more unpredictable climate and greater pressures on farmland worldwide to feed an increasing population, in particular an increasing middle class population in the developing/developed world. More people now desiring and can afford the same products.

Big supermarkets will sell some products as loss leaders to make consumers spend more. And people are pushed for time and options, it's much easier to get what you need in one big shop, or online order, so once the supermarket has you through the door you will spend.

Housing and gas doesn't have to play these games. House costs are supply and demand, if half the population up and left tomorrow with empty properties down each street it would be a scramble to sell if you needed to.

And gas priced on the open markets, how much tax the Government and profit the private companies want to add is what our leaders in charge calculate. We have a nation that tries to make sure we don't have homeless hungry children on the streets. A government needs money to do this. We also have a funded health service.

You can't have it all, you have to pay for something somewhere along the lines.

And of course it's more complicated than this obviously.

GreatPoster · 05/05/2025 19:14

Currently self catering in Tenerife. Can't get decent apples, cauliflower was 4 euros, oranges twice tge price, no broccoli, it seems more expensive to me.

MysteriousInspector · 05/05/2025 19:20

Greengrocers no longer exist round here Sad

I am old enough that I remember a greengrocer with a horse and cart going round our London suburb. (I don't live there any more.)

I assume the produce tasted nice, but cabbages and lettuces etc had to be washed and picked over for insects...

HellsBalls · 05/05/2025 19:35

GreatPoster · 05/05/2025 19:14

Currently self catering in Tenerife. Can't get decent apples, cauliflower was 4 euros, oranges twice tge price, no broccoli, it seems more expensive to me.

To be fair, I think everything is shipped or flown into Tenerife, and the market is quite small.

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