Ministers call in supermarket bosses for veg crisis talks

‘Families expect the produce they need to be on the shelves’: Ministers call in supermarket bosses for crisis talks over vegetable shortages amid fresh warnings that rationing will last weeks

• Food minister Mark Spencer will host the executives on Monday amid shortages
• Poor weather conditions in Morocco and Spain have hit trading routes hard 

Ministers will hold crisis talks with supermarket bosses tomorrow over the UK’s chronic vegetable shortage. 

Food minister Mark Spencer will host the executives as he seeks to find a way to get shelves stocked again, amid fears rationing could last several more weeks.

Poor weather conditions in Morocco and Spain have hit trading routes hard, resulting in supermarket shelves being left empty and Aldi, Morrisons, Tesco and Asda introducing limits on purchases of certain veg. 

The items seeing the most shortages are cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, lettuces and other everyday greens. And even home-grown turnips are in low supply after Environment Secretary Therese Coffey suggested them as a suitable alternative. 

Mr Spencer told The Sun on Sunday: ‘I know families expect the fresh produce they need to be on the shelves when they go for their weekly shop.

Food minister Mark Spencer will host the executives as he seeks to find a way to get shelves stocked again, amid fears rationing could last several more weeks.

Poor weather conditions in Morocco and Spain have hit trading routes hard, resulting in supermarket shelves being left empty and Aldi , Morrisons , Tesco and Asda introducing limits on purchases of certain veg.

A turnip tray in Tesco in Ely, Cambridgeshire, is left bare on Friday after environment secretary Therese Coffey said people should be eating them

‘That is why I am calling in supermarket chiefs to get shelves stocked again and to outline how we can avoid a repeat of this.’

It came as former environment secretary George Eustice said that rising fuel costs had led supermarket buyers to gambling on sourcing crops from farmers using ‘primitive’ techniques in Spain that had been hit by poor weather.

He told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘There isn’t much different that the government could have done in recent months and there’s nothing they can do immediately. We’re going to have three or four weeks of this.’

The shortages have seen shoppers flock to their local greengrocers and market stalls, who have remained fully stocked. However the spiralling wholesale costs mean they are either making very little profit – if any at all – or passing the increases on to the customers, who in turn are buying far fewer produce. 

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