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The energy costs haven't bothered me much until now! Lidl's tomato shelves are empty. No Piccolo toms. I seriously doubt that I can cope. What else will I have in my lunch??
https://www.goodto.com/food/food-news/tomato-shortage-uk-why-supermarkets-running-out
Big issues with suppliers in Spain as well at the moment.
I had a shock ordering some cherry tom's for my shop this am... Usually £4 a kg, now £6.10 at trade cost.
Supermarkets won't keep stock unless they can guarantee a low price.
Almost every item of (imported) fruit and veg has had significant price increases over the last week. Aubergines have doubled, satsumas have gone up by 30%.
I'll expect numbers of restaurants will be shutting over the next y months due to increased costs.
Radishes are the answer here. Sort of more seasonal too although the supermarket ones are currently being sourced from Morocco!
According to the link:
It's yet to be seen whether the same restriction will occur in late March and April this year - which again could lead to another shortage of tomatoes in British supermarkets.
I think that is the problem - restrictions on tomatoes from Morocco earlier last year. Now we are having to play ketchup.
Radishes are the answer here
what! you can't replace tomatoes with radishes.
Supermarkets won’t keep stock unless they can guarantee a low price
I'd pay a premium for cherry tomatoes! It's what I live on. Seriously.
you can’t replace tomatoes with radishes.
Fact!
ernie...I have no words for that 🙂
Just come out of asda, my bags devoid of tomatoes.
The shelves were bare 😭
Looks like everyone will have to come to my shop and pay £8 a kilo then....
https://shop.lupafoods.com/product/passata-10kg-aseptic-8-10/
10KG for £15. Modern problems require modern solutions.
Was in a cafe/restaurant for lunch and the staff were talking about it. Apparently no rain in Spain. Said the only place they could get them from was M&S.
Radishes are the answer here
what! you can’t replace tomatoes with radishes.
In your lunchbox why not. They are crunchier and get less squished. Possibly a superior snack option. Be brave and experiment. Winter tomatoes are usually flavourless so embrace a different texture for a few weeks.
If cooking just open a tin, after all tomato season is not for a few months.
only place they could get them from was M&S
Will be visiting them in the morning.
why not. They are crunchier and get less squished. Possibly a superior snack option
Thats just weird. Like saying, oh, you can’t get peaches? have a sprout.
Ones a delicious fruit, the other a boring vegetable.
ernie…I have no words for that 🙂
I know, tbh I'm not I'm proud. In fact re-reading made me go beetroot.
I'm proper embarrassed..... from my head to-ma-toes 🤭
ernie - first one was great, second one much less so but you're forgiven as...you're now a paying subscriber!!
Really we need to start eating more seasonally for fresh fruit and veg. It's terrible for the environment. It's hard getting used to not having all the things your used to but I've switched to getting a Riverford veg box and whilst they do bring some veg over from Spain in the winter that's the furthest it will have traveled and only from carefully chosen farms that respect the local environment.
Having to experiment with different kinds of veg has been really interesting actually and yielded some really delicious and nutritious meals. Yes it takes a bit more effort but now I don't miss all the plastic encased out of season stuff and when something is in season it's actually exciting and you really value it then. I will be sowing my cherry tomatoes in a couple of weeks and when those start to fruit in June it's almost a drug like rush the 1st time you harvest them. Then by the end of the season there's so many they are going in to batches of tomato chilli jam so that I can still have a little hit of summer in deepest winter. Down to my last 2 jars now 😱
Ones a delicious fruit, the other a boring vegetable.
Now hang on just a minute. You may not agree with replacing tomatoes with radishes. But radishes are not boring. What's more they are impossible to not grow successfully. You have to go a long way to get a tomato from a supermarket at this time of year that's as delicious as a reddish you pulled out the garden 10minites ago.
The Fraggles will be wanting a word with you with that daft accusation about radishes being boring!
quick ride down to M&S yesterday, sorted!
Radishes.. pah!
Really we need to start eating more seasonally for fresh fruit and veg. It’s terrible for the environment
This,
We don't eat strawberries outside the Scottish season. English ones are generally passable, Spanish, Egyptian and Moroccon strawberries are terrible, firm, not as succulent and no where near as sweet.
Not long to wait now.
Back to tomatoes, my local Tesco was devoid of tomatoes and peppers
When are bananas in season in the UK? 🤔
When are bananas in season in the UK?
Around about the same time as Tea, Chocolate. I only drink tea during the abundant on the south facing slopes of the Yorkshire moors. I much prefer borneville chocolate to that imported foreign muck grown in Belgium.
Indeed. the other fruit I eat and drink every single day is oranges. Be a long wait for the UK orange season
We get through a load of peppers and tomatoes in our household under normal circumstances. Got to pop out at lunchtime hopefully I'll be successful!
I don't recall them writing "Vote Brexit and eat ****ing carrots!" on the side of that big red bus.
British bananas are exported all over the world. Or rather a formerly successful strain was in small quantities which then became a pretty dominant factor in banana growing. Not for much longer sadly. Bye bye Cavandish.
I don’t recall them writing “Vote Brexit and eat ****ing carrots!” on the side of that big red bus.
Its funny when people complain that "this isn't the Brexit I voted for" - because it very much is the Brexit I didn't vote for.
Bye bye Cavandish.
Blimey... [i]"They are unable to reproduce sexually, instead being propagated via identical clones."[/i]
Everyday is a schoolday.
Very few tomatoes in Tesco at the weekend, just a handful of sorry-looking specimens loose in a box. They had posters up blaming the weather in Spain.
They had posters up blaming the weather in Spain.
Mostly on the plane?
Tomatoes on a plane?
Sounds like a dull film.
British bananas are exported all over the world.
British chocolate (cocoa plants) is. A central exchange to avoid disease when transferring plants between regions. It's an advantage that we don't grow cocoa so any break of quarantine in or out is likely to have no effect.
And I'm back from my epic quest to Tesco Castleton (the Rochdale one).
Peppers: Back up to full stock.
Tomatoes: Packs of multi colours "Finest" cherry ones and nothing else apart from signs saying that there are no tomatoes.
When are bananas in season in the UK?
All year round at chatsworth (one for the fruit breeding historians)
Will be sowing my tomato seeds over the weekend, 4 different heirloom types to grow this year. Never bothered last year grew chillies instead but reading this I'm glad I changed my mind!
DickBarton
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64712361/blockquote >There's a TOMATO SHORTAGE???! OMG 😲
It's not just tomatoes. cucumbers are so expensive that my veg stall man won't buy them atm. Shortage of anything and the prices rocket.
Will be sowing my tomato seeds over the weekend, 4 different heirloom types to grow this year.
I'm interested in home grown heirloom tomatoes too. Would you be able to share any handy hints, like when they're likely to be ready to harvest if planted around now, your address, times of day you're likely to be out and whether theres an aggressive dog.
My tomato delivery came in this morning, £2.25 per kg, same as the last few months....
^^ They look delish.
Asda had tin buckets with grow-your-own toms in them. I might go back and buy a couple of those. Not got a very sunny garden though.
According to various sources it is indeed the dry summer and cold winter that's bashed the toms. There are supplies in Europe but since our supermarkets insist on shape rather than flavour + rock bottom prices, we are bottom of the pile for available stock. Add in added costs from something that happened a while back and our Spanish chums are not that bothered about supplying us when they can sell all their available produce for more money and less hassle to others.
Yay.
Although, our local Tesco had a few peppers back in last night, mostly green.
+ rock bottom prices
Which is the key to almost all supermarket shortages, the stock is available, but the supermarkets are just unprepared and unable to buy it and pass the cost to their customers. Until one supermarket bites the bullet and increased prices none of the others can.
It's the same for symbol group convenience stores (Premier, Nisa and the like).
Independents like me can adjust instantly and keep stock level consistency, but not price.
It was the same in the pandemic, I had toilet roll/kitchen roll/paracetamol/bread flour/yeast etc. But the brand of stock was inconsistent and so was the price.
Tea is grown in England - Tregothnan in Cornwall; it costs more than PG or Yorkshire tea which are nothing more permeable bags filled with tea dust.
Turning to tomatoes, monkeyboy is right in saying that they are available - farm shops local to me are evidence of that; I'll be in one of them tomorrow and expect to find toms, peppers and cucumbers all available.
Has anyone blamed the Anti Growth Coalition yet?
I'm pretty sure it's the left-wing financial establishment
Independents like me can adjust instantly and keep stock level consistency, but not price.
That explains why all the independent shops near me always have stock. I'm over the supermarkets tbh, overpriced and crappy produce sold in a really depressing environment
I hope this doesn't affect the price of ketchup.
Heinz have been rapidly putting prices up this year - price marked bottles of ketchup have already gone up by 50p, was 2.29 in 2022, £2.79 in 2023
I live in North Portugal and there were plenty of tomatoes on the shelves in our local Intermarche this afternoon .....
Can’t stand ketchup
Oddly enough, I can't stand tomatoes.
Sssh Moe… we don’t speak of the outside world, and the pointing and the laughing.
Tregothnan in Cornwall; it costs more than PG or Yorkshire tea
The stuff actually grown in Cornwall is not just more expensive than the big brands, it’s ludicrously expensive.
The stuff Tregothnan sells in shops tends to be Indian with some Cornish mixed in… and then sold to us “buy British” mugs for a quid a teabag.
Many areas of the UK are perfect for growing tea… it’s not the climate that makes us dependent on imports.
I much refer Tregothnan - pure or blended - to the mass produced bags of black dust which are presented as 'tea'.
High quality teas - mainly in loose leaf form - can be re-infused upto 3 times with the flavour deepening and improving each time so the notional £1/tea bag is a meaningless reference.
I currently have 8 different types of tea in the cupboard so have some understanding of what I'm referring to.
There are few areas - not many - of the UK which are suitable for growing tea.
Get a cast iron Japanese teapot, a variety of leaf teas, a functional kettle and you have the basis for real tea.
I could give you the full 'work study' requirements for making tea but assume - possibly wrongly - that isn't required.
👆 If I was a member, I'd LIKE that comment! 👍😁
Frank, as long as you know Tregothan are mostly selling Indian tea that's only homepathically Cornish. Their marketing is deliberately wooly in my opinion... lots of PR about their estate tea... and then get Indian tea on the shelf for a big premium.
You'll be horrified to hear that the only loose leaf tea I have in at the moment is Earl Grey.... which to connoisseurs like yourself is the equivalent of flavoured coffee beans to the coffeeheads.
Tomatoes in Spain.
Spoke to a mate in Germany. No shortage of tomatoes there, either....
Plenty here in Spain, too, funnily enough. Not that they have much flavour at this time of year!
Not being funny, but who the hell buys more than a couple of cucumbers in winter, or a couple of packs of tomatoes. That's plenty for a week ? It's the nobbers who will by handfuls, for them all to go off as they can't possibly eat them all. It's the new loo roll !
Cucumbers for a party? [ I mean cucumber sandwiches and G&Ts... nothing dirty ]
Tomatoes are easier to explain. Hard to believe this, but there are people who actually cook with them! Imagine that! And they need loads. Tins and jars for me.
I eat fresh tomatoes pretty much every day, at least six days out of seven. I don't eat less in winter.
And although they can obviously go off tomatoes keep fresh for a reasonable time. There shouldn't be any reason for them to go manky before having the chance to eat them.
Cucumbers seem a bit pointless to me.
Healthy!
Healthy!
French-Italian cultural upbringing innit.
Tomato ketchup was one hundred percent banned in my house when I was a child, as was baked beans.
I had to experience English culinary delights away from home. I remember that momentous occasion when I purchased a saveloy from chip shop for the first time, I was about 17 and had no idea what it was.
I have salad with most meals, we'll go through loads of tomatoes and a couple of cucumbers a week. There's meant to be a lettuce shortage as well!!!!!
Ooh, I've not had a saveloy in years. Used to love them as a kid.
I have no idea what it was either…
Best described as very large circumcised Frankfurter, in appearance at least.
I’m sure I read that the Chinese have done testing and found cucumber to reduce the chance of cancer. I eat cucumber everyday too.
This one?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384961/
Not very exciting...
https://fullfact.org/online/cucumber-cancer/
We always have a cucumber on the go... at least one of us is eating it everyday. Same goes for tomatoes. Well, 'till this week.
Marmite and cucumber on toast is my favourite fix for munchies. Hungry just thinking about it.
Blimey, found those links quickly!
Well, I obviously thought it was bollocks, but I’m sure they don’t do any harm 😊
Was talking to a Spanish colleague who is based in Germany. The fruit and veg shortage was news to him.
I’m on the border with Almeria,it has been a tad chilly recently so productions down a bit but er it’s just easier to flog it locally in the eu than to you.
Bloody BBC has finally caught on to this now. Reported on Breakfast to encourage a bit of panic buying 😖
dude - it's another brexit benefit; the gift that keeps on giving.
Ha!
Be a long wait for the UK orange season
it peaks around the 12th of July and is strongest in NI and West Central Scotland. It comes with a bitter taste that might not appeal to all palettes though!
We have just been for the weekly shop in Sainsburys and they seem to have normal quantities of fruit and veg.
On the news this morning the Britsh Boris Corporation was showing empty shelves. There might be less veg than normal in some shops but the BBC news won't be happy until they cause a panic. Wonderful!