Spain blames cold weather and poor planning for UK fruit and veg crisis

By Emma Pinedo

MADRID, March 1 (Reuters) – Spain’s agriculture minister said on Wednesday poor British planning and problems caused by Brexit, along with cold weather, were the main reasons for the shortage of salads in the UK .

UK supermarket chains, including Tesco, have imposed limits on customers’ purchases of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers after supplies to the supermarket sector were hit by poor harvests in southern Europe and the UK. North Africa due to unusual weather conditions.

“There is a problem with the programming of purchases, quite significant, and then there was a reduction in production due to low temperatures,” Agriculture Minister Luis Planas said on Wednesday during a meeting. ceremony.

Planas said that not only greenhouse crops were affected, but also outdoor crops, such as artichokes or broccoli.

Spain is one of Britain’s main suppliers of fruit and vegetables.

The crisis has been exacerbated by lower winter production in greenhouses in the UK and the Netherlands due to high energy costs, with social media awash with pictures of empty fruit and vegetable shelves in supermarkets.

Planas said the shortages showed the vulnerability of Britain’s food supply and labor issues in the private sector following Brexit.

“Brexit wasn’t a big deal, but that’s up to them,” he said.

Spanish fruit and vegetable production is recovering after being hit by unfavorable weather conditions and supplies to export markets are expected to improve soon, the fresh produce exporters association FEPEX said last week.

Planas said that although markets like France or Germany were likely to have priority, the shortage in the UK was “an absolutely transitory situation”.

“We want to keep our customers and they also want, and for many years, Spanish products that they know are of high quality,” he said.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip and Angus MacSwan, editing in Spanish by José Muñoz in the Gdansk newsroom)