Drama in the United Kingdom: the shelves of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in supermarkets are empty. The chains Lidl, Aldi, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, positioned among the cheapest in the country, rationed their customers, allowed to buy only two or three of each of these vegetables. The Lidl group took this decision on Monday because “of a recent increase in demand” and for “ensure that all of our customers have access to the products they need”. How might the British indeed do without tomatoes and cucumbers, essential for making the traditional English Breakfast or late followingnoon gin and tonic?
The supermarkets justify their supply difficulties by “poor weather conditions in Spain and Morocco, which affected the availability of certain products throughout the supermarket sector”, said Lidl. An argument taken up by the government. Although the UK is the only European country in this situation.
Brexit does not explain everything
However, the stalls of Da Giovanna, an Italian grocery store in Islington, a municipality in north London, seem filled. “We have no problem getting our supplies, even black cherry tomatoes, which are generally more complicated to obtain, even though all our products come from Italy”, assures its boss Veronica, surprised that the British do not take into account the seasonality of fruits and vegetables. “Brexit therefore has little to do with the current shortage of supermarkets, even though the rising cost of transport and customs clearance has driven prices up for the past two years.”
Installed on the same sidewalk, the Food Bazar grocery store ostensibly displays a mountain of tomatoes in its vegetable area. “Yes, there are fewer tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers available than usual, but I have known the distributors at Spitafields wholesale market for over twenty years, so they always put boxes aside for me”says, all smiles, his boss Ali Matur. “For that, I still had to pay the price: I sell my cherry tomatoes for 8.99 pounds sterling (10.15 euros) per kilo whereas they were at 2.99 pounds six months ago.”
Going up the supply chain, the financial question is central to explaining this shortage. “A year ago, the production of a cucumber cost us 25 pence (0.28 euro)”, says Lee Stiles, secretary of the Lea Valley Producers Association. In this agricultural area north of London, the eighty farmers produce 80 million cucumbers and 100 million peppers a year, or three quarters of national production. “With the sharp rise in energy prices, our cost had increased by 30%, but the supermarkets refused to pay us more than before. They therefore opted for larger orders in Spain and Morocco.”
The United Kingdom, a less attractive market
Over the past ten years, the UK has imported between 43% and 47% of its fresh vegetables, according to government figures. But there are significant variations depending on the vegetable: between 80% and 86% of the tomatoes consumed in the country are imported. While supermarkets wanted to increase their orders abroad, poor harvests in Spain and Morocco prevented them from compensating for orders not placed with British producers. “Especially since if they have the choice, European and African producers now prefer not to sell to British supermarkets: there are more documents to produce and more waiting at the British border, supermarkets set lower purchase prices than on the Continent and trucks come back three-quarters empty from the UK, which exports less to Europe”poursuit Lee Stiles. “From our side, as we only plant when ordered, we didn’t harvest anything around Valentine’s Day, as is usually the case.” The moment when tensions began to appear in the big brands.
Why have supermarkets chosen not to increase their purchase prices, even if it means passing them on to customers to preserve their margins? “Supermarkets would rather show empty shelves and blame the climate than say they refuse to pay UK farmers better”, analyzes the representative of the Lea Valley. “We are the first victims of this strategy: last year, 10% of our members stopped their business which had become unprofitable. But the government refuses to interfere.
In the shorter term, the current crisis should last beyond the end of March, the date put forward by the government. “Growers have just replanted, betting that as temperatures improve they will use less electricity and their costs will return to acceptable levels”, says Lee Stiles. For the Gin Tonic and its cucumber slices, we will therefore have to wait for the harvests, scheduled for May.
