Maximum 3 tomatoes and peppers per customer: UK supermarkets increasingly ration fruits and vegetables

Asda is temporarily limiting purchases of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and berries to three per customer. Morrisons will offer a two-per-customer limit of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers starting Wednesday. “Like other supermarkets, we have import problems for some products grown in southern Spain and North Africa,” said an Asda spokesperson.

Other players such as Tesco, Co-op, Aldi and Lidl are still watching the cat out of the tree, but they are not reassured.

Bad weather and expensive energy

Weather in southern Europe and North Africa has disrupted tomato and pepper harvests, among other things, according to the British trade consortium BRC. According to the British Retail Consortium, Britain relies heavily on imports of fruits and vegetables from December to March. In the winter, for example, it imports 95 percent of its tomatoes and 90 percent of its lettuce. Farmers in Morocco are battling cold weather, heavy rains and floods. This led to transportation problems and ship cancellations. Spain has also suffered from bad weather in the past three or four weeks, which has halted supplies.

But not only the supply of tomatoes and lettuce is a problem, vegetables and fruits that are naturally grown in our country are also becoming increasingly scarce. “As a result of the high energy prices farmers are suffering and as a result production in British greenhouses has fallen sharply,” said the National Farmers’ Union, the largest British farmers’ union. The National Farmers Union warned in December that Britain was “sleepwalking towards a major food crisis”. Chairman Minette Batters now fears that “more foods will have to be rationed, and for a longer period of time.” It points an accusing finger at the government, which provides heavy subsidies to energy-intensive industries such as the steel sector, but simply leaves the horticulture sector out in the cold. “Farmers and horticulturists cannot continue to sell below cost,” she warned.

It’s not Brexit!

Brits already agree on one thing: for once, the whole situation isn’t due to Brexit. The main impact of the new border measures for importing fruit and vegetables from the EU will not be felt until January 2024, while imports from Morocco – which is outside the EU – will be subject to border controls for some time.

Although this is little consolation for the average Brit. In protest, they widely posted photos on social media of empty store shelves in the fruit and vegetable sections of their supermarket.