Supermarket bosses to be hauled in front of Food Minister to explain shortages

26 February 2023 , 17:47

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Supermarkets have had to place limits on some products due to shortages (Image: PA)

Supermarket bosses are set to be hauled in by the Food Minister to explain shortages of fruit and veg products for customers across the UK.

It comes after Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Aldi were forced to put limits on the number of items customers were allowed to buy,

Today former Environment Secretary George Eustice warned that the shortages are likely to go on for another "three to four weeks".

Chiefs from major supermarket chains are expected to meet with Food Minister Mark Spencer to discuss lessons learned from the crisis, and explain how it happened.

It comes as chef Thomasina Miers, who runs the Wahaca chain of restaurants, sounded an ominous warning, describing the UK's food system as "completely broken" and stating: "There's a time bomb we're sitting on."

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She continued: "If we think cucumbers and tomatoes are bad, we are looking at way worse in the next decade."

Thomasina Miers warned the situation could get much worse in the next decade (Getty Images for Freuds)

George Eustice said the shortages could last another three or four weeks (Daily Mirror/Ian Vogler)

Tesco and Aldi are limiting customers to three units of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers as a precautionary measure, while Asda is also limiting customers on lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.

And Morrisons has set a limit of two items per customer across tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers.

Mr Eustice claimed there wasn't much different the government could have done, but told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: "We're going to have three or four weeks of this and the supermarkets have got to work to get it right.

"Longer term that there are things we should be doing."

Retailers say the problems stem from poor yields on the continent and north Africa, and that supplies will improve in the coming days or weeks.

And an unnamed supermarket executive told the Mail on Sunday: ‘Supply chains are run as 'just in time'.

Therese Coffey suggested people could eat turnips instead (PA)

"To stop it spoiling, we get produce just in time for it to go on shelves and be sold. Any hiccupand shelves look empty."

Last week Environment Secretary Therese Coffey suggested in the House of Commons that people could get around the shortages by eating turnips instead.

She said: 'It's important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country.

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"A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about... lettuce and tomatoes and similar, but I'm conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world are trying to satisfy."

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has warned that shortages of some fruit and vegetables in UK supermarkets could be "the tip of the iceberg".

NFU deputy president Tom Bradshaw said a reliance on imports has left the UK vulnerable to "shock weather events".

Mr Bradshaw told Times Radio: "We've been warning about this moment for the past year."

He continued: "There's a lack of confidence from the growers that they're going to get the returns that justify planting their glasshouses, and at the moment we've got a lot of glasshouses that would be growing the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergine that are sitting there empty because they simply couldn't take the risk to plant them with the crops, not thinking they'd get the returns from the marketplace.

"And with them being completely reliant on imports - we'd always have some imports - but we've been completely reliant on imports (now). And when there's been some shock weather events in Morocco and Spain, it's meant that we've had these shortages.

"It's really interesting that before Brexit we didn't used to source anything, or very little, from Morocco but we've been forced to go further afield and now these climatic shocks becoming more prevalent have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today."

Dave Burke