If you live in the UK, you’ve probably noticed that your local supermarket shelves look like the photo above. In recent days, the country’s businesses have been faced with a shortage of tomatoes and other vegetables.
To the extent that Asda, Britain’s third-largest supermarket even introduced a temporary limit of three cans of tomatoes per customer, while another chain, Morrisonssaid it would impose a cap of two items per person.
Many social media users in the UK took to Twitter to decry the lack of fresh tomatoes. Others have accused the Brexit to be the cause of this shortage.
So why is there a shortage of tomatoes right now in the UK? The Cube took a closer look at what’s really going on.
Supermarkets claimed bad weather in Morocco and Spain – their main tomato suppliers – was to blame for the disruption. According to the British Embassy, 25% of the tomatoes consumed in the UK come from Morocco. It is true that Morocco and Spain have experienced exceptionally low temperatures in recent weeks.
Reached by euronews, the director of the British Retail Consortium said this: “Difficult weather conditions in southern Europe and North Africa have disrupted the harvest of some fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes and peppers.”
More Morocco and Spain also supply other EU countries and many netizens have posted photos of completely full shelves on social media, especially in France.
So what is the reason for this situation? We posed the question to Chris White, Director of FruitNet:“It is frankly easier and cheaper for a supplier to supply the Netherlands and other northern countries, such as Germany, because they do not have these 40km of Channel to cross which adds a cost.”
We spoke to another farmers’ association who told us that the situation was aggravated by a drop in tomato production in greenhouses in the UK and major producing countries like the Netherlands due to high energy costs.
But what is the responsibility of Brexit in all this? We posed the question to Pekka Pesonen, director of Copa&Cogeca, an association of European farmers:_”Of course it doesn’t help that we now have Brexit rules to follow and that can indeed in some cases have an impact But I would say the weather and energy price increases are the main reason.”
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And Europe, The Independent also reported that Ireland was starting to face similar shortages. According to the growers and experts interviewed, the situation might take a few more weeks before tomatoes are back in supermarkets.
