Salad crisis: UK greenhouse agriculture has 'hit tipping point'

Deputy leader of farmers' union claims the shortage of some fruit and vegetables 'is the tip of the iceberg'

Some distributors have blamed British supermarkets for the absence of some fruits and vegetables on shelves, saying the retailers are not willing to pay higher prices for the produce. AFP

The deputy leader of the UK National Farmers Union has said the current shortage of some fruit and vegetables in the country's supermarkets illustrates that greenhouse agriculture in Britain is perilously close to crisis.

Tom Bradshaw told Times Radio: “I think things have just hit a tipping point. We've been warning about this moment for the past year.

“The tragic events in Ukraine have driven inflation, particularly energy inflation to levels that we haven't seen before.

“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.”

Earlier in the week, several UK supermarkets limited the quantities each customer could buy of some fruits and vegetables, following a shortage of imports from Morocco and Spain.

Colder than usual winter weather and disruptions to transport links meant the supply of items like tomatoes and cucumbers from North Africa and southern Spain became affected.

A large percentage of some fruits and vegetables are imported from the two countries during the winter, while the balance is often supplied from greenhouses in the UK.

But as energy prices soared last year, British farmers calculated they would not be able to recoup their costs from heating greenhouses, and fewer hectares of crops such as tomatoes were planted.

“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,” Mr Bradshaw told Times Radio.

“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.”

He went on to say that the shortage of some fruit and vegetables “is the tip of the iceberg”.

“Ultimately this all goes down to whether they [farmers] have been able to pass their costs up the supply chain or not, and actually, it's proved incredibly challenging to pass those costs up.”

“Retailers are doing everything they can to keep prices down during this cost-of-living crisis but what we see is that farmers and growers can't afford to invest in food production for the future.”

“And so it means that these shortage are something we see on the back of it, and we've warned about this for a long while,” he added.

Paying the price

Meanwhile, some distributors and independent growers told Reuters that the reduced supply of certain imported fruits and vegetables was not the only reason for empty shelves, but that some supermarkets were unwilling to pay higher prices for them.

“There is no shortage,” said Volkert Engelsman, chief executive of Eosta BV, a Netherlands-based supplier of organic produce to supermarkets in Britain and continental Europe.

“If retailers would pay the right price there would be plenty of food.”

Supermarket groups say they are paying more to producers but, equally, know consumers only have so much to spend on their shopping.

That means they sometimes choose not to pay more for stock, risking empty shelves. In July, for instance, Kraft Heinz products went missing from Tesco stores over a pricing dispute.

Inflation still high

With food inflation now running at a record 16.7 per cent in the UK, consumers are becoming hyper-sensitive to upward movements in prices.

“I've noticed the availability of basic perishable foods becoming less and less over the last few months,” said Anthony Law, who shops at a Tesco Superstore in Evesham in Worcestershire.

“On Saturday afternoon, there was hardly any fresh produce available,”

“The staff all looked bemused and defeated as everyone asked when the next consignment was due,” he added.

Similarly, a Mr Warden, who shops at various supermarkets in south-east Kent, takes a photograph on his mobile phone every time he sees an empty shelf.

“I seem to have a whole host of pictures from over the last 24 months on my phone, be it medication, fresh produce or even pet stuff,” he said.