Fruit & vegetable shortages are “inevitable” across the UK and Europe as hot weather continues, the sector has warned.
As drought conditions were extended into nearly 70% of England this week, the National Drought Group has warned all regions of the country are undergoing pressure on water resources, resulting in farmers experiencing their earliest harvest in 20 years.
The result is that many growers will be cutting back on how much they plant in the future, The Grocer understands, while for this season “supply will be patchy” according to Ged Futter, director of The Retail Mind.
“The likelihood is that there will be shortages and prices will be more expensive,” said Futter. “That is inevitable, really.”
He said that lower yields in the UK would force retailers to look to Europe for imports, but those countries have had “even higher temperatures, so there’s going to be a shortage across the whole of Europe”.
Futter added it would then come down to how much retailers were willing to pay, and said this would act as a “wake-up call” for them to better invest in their UK supply chains.
He has called on retailers to invest in long-term contracts, such as one made by Sainsbury’s last month with Evesham Vale Growers and Thanet Earth to prop up its supply of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. He said this would support supply and enable growers to more easily get loans from banks for investment in crucial infrastructure.
Earlier this week, FDF Scotland CEO and UK director of strategy David Thomson told the BBC there were “significant concerns” over the availability of many fruit & veg products, and warned it was only a matter of time before shoppers experienced a spike in food price inflation.
While the FDF’s prediction of food price inflation hitting up to 10% by the end of this year has now been downgraded, with a new forecast set to come out in the next two weeks, the FDF boss said there was only so much suppliers could do to keep prices down.
“We have a significant concern across the food sector about the availability and cost of ingredients as we go forward into the coming year,” Thomson told BBC Scotland.
It comes following warnings from brassica growers last week that yields were down by 50% in places, with sweetcorn also dropping 25% and products like beans and peas ending harvest several weeks early.
Carrots are also expected to be impacted, according to Rodger Hobson, chairman of the British Carrot Growers Association.
He said the heatwaves starting in May had “just killed carrots” and while it is still a bit early to say, he warned that “if you were to look at a fairly clear crystal ball, you’d say the heavens aren’t going to open, which is going to be pretty bloody awful”.
He added that potatoes were also in “trouble” and the parsnips crop is a “disaster”.
In the short term he has said growers will “grow less” to minimise the financial risk of crops dying in the field. “In the short term, that’s the only option,” he added. “In the medium term and longer term, you hope we can get some more water resource in place.”
Hobson has called for the UK to follow in the footsteps of Mediterranean countries, which have better prepared for a lack of water by building infrastructure and water storage over a number of years.
“The government probably needs to work out what it needs to do to get on-farm storage in a hurry” so that agricultural businesses are not reliant on the national supply, he added.
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