British shops face purchase limits for fruit and vegetables

Grocery chains such as Tesco, Aldi, Morrisons and Asda have set limits on how much customers can buy of certain vegetables and fruit, including tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, broccoli and raspberries. Sky News.

– Like other supermarkets, we face procurement challenges for some products grown in southern Spain and northern Africa, says Aldi’s spokesperson. media company.

According to the British Retail Federation, Britain typically imports 95 percent of tomatoes and 90 percent of lettuce between December and March. But poor weather in southern Europe and northern Africa has affected imports from countries such as Spain and Morocco.

Farmers refrain from tomato cultivation

At the same time, rising energy and fertilizer costs have increased pressure on UK farmers. Many of them avoid growing tomatoes in their greenhouses in winter, which require light and heat. Instead, the start of tomato cultivation has been postponed, meaning it will be another two months before British consumers can get extra tomatoes, Phil Pearson, product development manager at food company APS, tells Sky News.

– We then tried to save a little value, because everyone is very squeezed by prices, not only energy, but fertilizer, labor, everything has increased, he says.

APS production typically harvests 650 million tomatoes a year, but now some greenhouses are left empty to avoid the cost of lighting them up for the winter.

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