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

[MissHoneyPenny]

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.

British cherries? You get about 12 in a plastic container for £2.50

Abroad I buy a huge bag full for less money and gorge on them till I'm fed up with them!

That post was a perfect example of how people just expect to have everything available all year round in the UK.

Sadly many British consumers aren’t willing or able to support local produce. The UK spends one of the lowest percentages of net income on food of any country in Europe.

Its about consistent supply, UK produce can be fickle, a slight change in the weather and there is either loads of crop, not enough or none at all.

In the past, our family, along with many others used to grow fruit, flowers and salad crops.. all gone now, expense of energy to heat glass houses, weather, labour costs.

It became impossible to compete with overseas growers.

M&S can't guarantee a UK farmer will actually have any runner beans in late summer or their quality.

A pp said UK has great growing conditions - no we don't, we have inconsistent growing conditions & thats getting worse, last spring wet and cold for fruit, this year nr perfect, so prices will plummet :(

This is an interesting point.

Great point too. I’m young enough to never remember a time when a certain fruit or vegetable wasn’t available. I would much rather the alternative though if it meant better quality!

This is what I find time and again. My DCs are pretty good eaters when it comes to veg but it is much easier get them to eat it when we’re abroad as the produce is so much tastier.

I am definitely going to try the veg box approach.

Interesting that some people have said this. I suppose I’m comparing prices to previous prices in the uk. For example, bell peppers have increased in price by at least 50% in recent years but the quality has definitely got down.

I agree. That’s why I said the “majority”. You absolutely can get some great stuff but at a big cost which is not accessible to everyone unlike in other countries.

I wish I could. We had a short window of about 6 months where we could get one, but then they pulled it

Interesting point. I do wonder why this is?

If you buy local and seasonal, we have amazing fruit and veg. Our greengrocer (we also have a proper butcher and fishmonger in town) labels stuff down to the village it was grown in and when something is in season you get an incredible variety of each thing. Currently of course it is asparagus, and buying the trimmings is so cheap compared to what you'd pay even in Lidl.

But you can’t in France or the states. Whole foods and Trader Joes are $$$$, supermarket fruit and veg in French supermarkets aside from peaches and melons is pretty taste less and poor. I get great fruit and veg in Sainsbury’s if I buy seasonal .

It does the job. I love my veggie meals.

OP there are always little independent grocers about. Ours stocks organic and local produce and they are all very good. You'll never get the cheap, delicious tomatoes and peppers they get in Spain, but believe me here we get fantastic apples, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuces and the tastiest potatoes among many other cooler weather veg.

Supermarkets stock based on price which only favours large pesticide veg producers in the UK or imports. Please please if you care about what you eat and can afford to do so pay more, eat local.

Groceries in general are very cheap in the UK. I pay about double for most things here, especially fruit and vegetables. Thankfully it’s better quality.
Ironically I find it easier to eat healthily in the US than I did in the UK, because despite there being a greater abundance of unhealthy food here, healthy food is not more expensive than unhealthy food (as it’s all expensive haha).

This is interesting. I’m basing my take on my recent experience of shopping in Spain where, for example, I got 2 massive punnets of delicious strawberries for €4 as well as asparagus, artichokes and peppers for a very reasonable price.

It's partly because we don't view food as anything other than fuel. We lost an appreciation of food partly down to rationing and the restricted available foods and recipes. It's partly because farms were pushed into monoculture growing by the 60s so we lost the variety, that we are are agriculturally technologically advanced, have fewer smallholdings and fewer farms that specialise in market gardening so fewer farmers to take good veg to market. There are smallholdings that do a variety of veg and produce but it's so local you need to be in a fairly rural county to obtain these things. We're many more generations from our farming ancestors too and we've been made wary of farmers and their motives by successive media outlets, partly because we don't know what they do. I'm an ex farm worker and I worked in an educational field as part of that, many friends have absolutely no idea where food comes from and cares less to know, they think I'm weird wanting to eat stuff I've grown, one stated it was because I would have had to pull it out of the ground to kill it ... its hard to combat views like that with normal conversation.

We don't want to shop frequently so higher reliance on supermarket conveninece than many of our continental neighbours and a requirement for fresh foods to be packaged so it lasts longer. The supermarkets are a very small group that have decided to compete on price rather than quality so they know we don't expect good food so they don't feel the need to provide it, they only need to make it cheap to ensure custom.

It's a complicated situation but this is where we are.

Moving from the UK to Canada, one of the first things I noticed was how much better produce in supermarkets is here.

On the flip side, cheese here is much worse and far more expensive.

Yes to this - I'm looking at a fruit and veg delivery in my kitchen (in US) that includes a punnet of what I can only describe as frankenberries.

Maybe it’s the veg people choose - cabbage, celery, leeks, carrots, cauliflower al fine as far as I can see -to complain about our avocados seems a bit wrong.

A very sad situation in my opinion.

It is I agree, but even people like me who saw what was happening in the later stages of the social change bought into those changes too. Even though I grow a lot of fruit and veg to use, I freeze and preserve a lot, I still have an occasional ready meal. I work 70 hours a week, I have other responsibilities, cooking from scratch having shopped 4 times a week for fresh food, because I can't grow everything I eat, is great but not always relaxing so I'm not looking to apportion blame on anyone. Convenience is hard to resist

The worst food in the UK is the red meat quality like steak and sausages and bacon ! Shocking.