8 ms·

UK supermarkets run out of turnips

41 points by jjgreen 4y ago

dom96 4y ago
> after Tory minister tells Brits to eat them to avoid shortages wow, didn't realise Therese Coffey had such sway on the British public. Presumably most of these turnips are just being thrown out and not actually eaten.
- b800h 4y ago
  I suspect this entire story is probably down to one shop running out of turnips and someone tweeting a photo of it.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    It seems to be just Tesco's and Waitrose, and the information seems to come exclusively from an online search.
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  might be possible that given the restrictions now placed on purchasing certain vegetables shoppers are seeking alternatives, irrespective of what Tory MPs may or may not say.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mnd999 4y ago
  It’s possible they were buying them to throw at Therese Coffey.
rcme 4y ago
I've been hearing about the UK food shortage recently, so I was curious to see what the cause was. A Google Search turned up this article from over two months ago warning that the UK would face a food shortage without government assistance: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-shortages-eggs-water-medicine-rationing-b1045414.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-shortages-eggs-water-m... The direct cause of the food shortage is still unclear to me, but it was interesting to see that this issue was known about months beforehand.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  The article mentions > High temperatures and a lack of rain, followed by a period of cold weather, are being blamed for creating the “most difficult season ever,” Tim Casey, chairman of the Leek Growers Association, said. > Suppliers have warned that shortages could last weeks as a combination of bad weather and transport problems in Africa and Europe has left some fruit and vegetables out of stock.
  - b800h 4y ago
    Oh, don't let that get in the way of a good anti-Brexit story! Come on, man!
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      Easier trade would help smooth over short-term shortages.
      - b800h 4y ago
        As with Covid, I think one major contributor is the inflexibility of the supermarket supply chains. Even when local supermarkets have been missing cucumbers or something, they have been readily available, at slightly higher prices, at small shops. Right at the beginning you could say that was down to profiteering, but from what I've seen the supply network for these places flexed and was able to reconfigure a lot more quickly because it's less monolithic.
        the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
        Why is this a uniquely British problem?
        b800h 4y ago
        We have pinch points at the English Channel, which probably doesn't help. I expect that means that the delivery system is more "release train" and less "agile". Also, it's worth noting that it's not uniquely British; the Irish have had the same problems.
hanoz 4y ago
A comical new addition to the general impression that Britain is falling apart at the seams.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Not really. I went to my fruit guy in one of the areas that the media said has no supply...everything in stock. He spoke to his suppliers and supermarkets just won't pay the higher prices. The supply is there though. He had a full range of salad products. The UK buys a lot of produce from NL (which is a huge exporter of tomatoes and other greenhouse-grown produce), they have been selling in Europe at the higher prices that factor in higher electricity cost, UK supermarkets have stopped buying from them because it would mean having to increase prices. And finally, UK producers chose not to produce at all this winter because they believed that UK supermarkets wouldn't offer a price that made production profitable...they were right. This kind of thing happens because, for multiple reasons, there is an obsession with providing very low food prices. UK supermarkets achieve this (the prices for vegetables are comically low here, still...my Tesco had a sale on potatoes the other week, 20p/kg...how? How is this possible? Farmers here get absolutely abused) but the result is that sometimes they don't have anything. It has been happening with eggs, milk, meat (most UK supermarkets just don't get quality meat anymore, even their premium ranges of top cuts of beef are shoe leather), vegetables...and, of course, all anyone can talk about is the declinist nonsense rather than look at how fucked the food supply chain is.
  - droopyEyelids 4y ago
    Could a screwed up supply chain for food be a symptom of decline?
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      It is the opposite. It is a function of overwhelming levels of competition in the retail business and an obsession with total efficiency. I am not sure what the solution is but this problem has existed since the early 90s when the industry began to consolidate heavily into the large supermarkets. The industry has kept trying to consolidate which may lead to less aggressive action (supermarkets are fully aware of how damaging their behaviour has been), but the govt has been blocking this to keep food prices low. One big change was Aldi/Lidl who have introduced more diversity into the supply chain without compromising on price...but that is only in some verticals, and their general position towards farmers is still quite aggressive. But the pursuit of extremely low prices and consumer value is not a sign of decline.
Veen 4y ago
I've just been to my local farm shop (I live in a rural area of the UK). Lots of turnips, leeks, potatoes, and other vegetables readily available. I suspect that the humble turnip, having fallen out of fashion, isn't bought in huge numbers by the supermarkets. A small uptick in demand may have accounted for their entire supply.
talideon 4y ago
It's not all that long ago that they were threatening to starve Ireland because of the negotiations around the border. Plenty of food here right now! The only thing we have an issue with is tomatoes, and local tomatoes are about to come into season.
- b800h 4y ago
  Weds 22nd Feb: "Irish Examiner: Shortage of fruit and vegetables 'a wake-up call' on impact of climate change" https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41076908.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41076908.html Tue 21st Feb "Irish Times: Supply of vegetables to Ireland disrupted by poor weather and energy costs" https://www.irishtimes.com/food/2023/02/21/supply-of-vegetables-to-ireland-disrupted-by-poor-weather-and-energy-costs/ https://www.irishtimes.com/food/2023/02/21/supply-of-vegetab...
  - talideon 4y ago
    Yup! Hence my mention of tomatoes, which is the main place where I've seen any disruption. I'm not saying that there's no disruption here, but Ireland is a lot more food secure than the UK. Our shortages are relatively minor compared to the UK, which is what makes their earlier attempts to threaten us with food shortages somewhat funny.
    - b800h 4y ago
      "Shortages reported in broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and courgettes" Those are the same ones as the UK. Except the turnips (allegedly).
      - talideon 4y ago
        Haven't noticed much of a lack of any of them other than jalapeños specifically. There's no shortage of cruciferous vegetables, lettuce, or gourds. I've a bunch of sweet peppers sitting on my fridge. We grow plenty of all those, except peppers and tomatoes.
skipants 4y ago
> Tory colleague Selaine Saxby said supermarkets are importing “far too many products” Yikes -- do the Tories not have any economists at their disposal or do they just choose not to listen to them?
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  This is 100% true. We rely very heavily on imports in winter. The majority of this stuff can be grown in the UK but isn't because UK supermarkets are obsessed with lower prices. We need more onshore production and higher prices. If you look at tomatoes, we actually had some domestic production but these places chose not to grow this winter knowing that supermarkets wouldn't pay the higher price. So they rely heavily on places like Morocco and Kenya that can offer lower prices, and sometimes that doesn't work out. I had a friend whose family ran one of the largest potato farms in the UK. They stopped working with supermarkets in the 90s because it was so horrendous (Tesco notoriously used to do multi-hour contract negotiations with farmers, they would deliberately not give them seats so they had to stand for the whole thing and turn the heat up in the room without giving them water, they also had specialist negotiators who were notoriously abusive...this is how the largest supermarket behaves), they did food service, and then they went into food manufacturing. It was the only way to retain margins (many of the largest food groups in the UK came out of farms that needed to keep moving up the supply chain because of pressure from supermarkets).
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    Supermarkets obsessing over lower prices is a good thing actually. Cheap food is like the first things societies need to be functional. Sucks for farmers, but the rest of us are eating good because of the work the markets put in.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      Not when you already have extremely low prices. We aren't talking about massive numbers, literally pence in the kg. Most consumers wouldn't notice any difference, it is all totally pointless. The same is happening with eggs, with milk, supermarkets are playing "hard ball" with people whose choice is: receive the higher price, or produce nothing...we took the produce nothing option. We need local production that rewards people for work and investment. And you are saying "cheap food" is needed...okay, the price is low but there is no food. How does no food rank on your system of things required in society? You are clueless because you are, presumably, imagining somewhere like the US where food is cripplingly expensive. That isn't the case here, food is cheap but so cheap that often results in there being no supply of some products. People can't conceive of farmers and workers actually needing money to buy their own food.
benj111 4y ago
No tomatoes in 2 supermarkets today. The egg section has seemed quite Soviet for quite a while. Now the veg aisle is getting the same way.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  But the prices are incredibly low. When I came back to Sweden, here we don't have a tomato shortage, but the price has gone up to about 9 GBP per kg - so not much difference in reality.
  - benj111 4y ago
    I thought this was a Brexit thing. Evidently not.
- lonelyasacloud 4y ago
  Shortages in eggs and chicken are mainly down to precautions around trying to contain the spread of avian influenza.
i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
Well, that’s Baldrick’s cunning plan out of the window then.

41 points by jjgreen 4y ago

> after Tory minister tells Brits to eat them to avoid shortages wow, didn't realise Therese Coffey had such sway on the British public. Presumably most of these turnips are just being thrown out and not actually eaten.

b800h 4y ago
I suspect this entire story is probably down to one shop running out of turnips and someone tweeting a photo of it.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  It seems to be just Tesco's and Waitrose, and the information seems to come exclusively from an online search.
Quarrelsome 4y ago
might be possible that given the restrictions now placed on purchasing certain vegetables shoppers are seeking alternatives, irrespective of what Tory MPs may or may not say.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mnd999 4y ago
It’s possible they were buying them to throw at Therese Coffey.

rcme 4y ago

I've been hearing about the UK food shortage recently, so I was curious to see what the cause was. A Google Search turned up this article from over two months ago warning that the UK would face a food shortage without government assistance: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-shortages-eggs-water-medicine-rationing-b1045414.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-shortages-eggs-water-m... The direct cause of the food shortage is still unclear to me, but it was interesting to see that this issue was known about months beforehand.

mynameisvlad 4y ago
The article mentions > High temperatures and a lack of rain, followed by a period of cold weather, are being blamed for creating the “most difficult season ever,” Tim Casey, chairman of the Leek Growers Association, said. > Suppliers have warned that shortages could last weeks as a combination of bad weather and transport problems in Africa and Europe has left some fruit and vegetables out of stock.
- b800h 4y ago
  Oh, don't let that get in the way of a good anti-Brexit story! Come on, man!
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Easier trade would help smooth over short-term shortages.
    - b800h 4y ago
      As with Covid, I think one major contributor is the inflexibility of the supermarket supply chains. Even when local supermarkets have been missing cucumbers or something, they have been readily available, at slightly higher prices, at small shops. Right at the beginning you could say that was down to profiteering, but from what I've seen the supply network for these places flexed and was able to reconfigure a lot more quickly because it's less monolithic.
      - the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
        Why is this a uniquely British problem?
        b800h 4y ago
        We have pinch points at the English Channel, which probably doesn't help. I expect that means that the delivery system is more "release train" and less "agile". Also, it's worth noting that it's not uniquely British; the Irish have had the same problems.

hanoz 4y ago

A comical new addition to the general impression that Britain is falling apart at the seams.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
Not really. I went to my fruit guy in one of the areas that the media said has no supply...everything in stock. He spoke to his suppliers and supermarkets just won't pay the higher prices. The supply is there though. He had a full range of salad products. The UK buys a lot of produce from NL (which is a huge exporter of tomatoes and other greenhouse-grown produce), they have been selling in Europe at the higher prices that factor in higher electricity cost, UK supermarkets have stopped buying from them because it would mean having to increase prices. And finally, UK producers chose not to produce at all this winter because they believed that UK supermarkets wouldn't offer a price that made production profitable...they were right. This kind of thing happens because, for multiple reasons, there is an obsession with providing very low food prices. UK supermarkets achieve this (the prices for vegetables are comically low here, still...my Tesco had a sale on potatoes the other week, 20p/kg...how? How is this possible? Farmers here get absolutely abused) but the result is that sometimes they don't have anything. It has been happening with eggs, milk, meat (most UK supermarkets just don't get quality meat anymore, even their premium ranges of top cuts of beef are shoe leather), vegetables...and, of course, all anyone can talk about is the declinist nonsense rather than look at how fucked the food supply chain is.
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  Could a screwed up supply chain for food be a symptom of decline?
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    It is the opposite. It is a function of overwhelming levels of competition in the retail business and an obsession with total efficiency. I am not sure what the solution is but this problem has existed since the early 90s when the industry began to consolidate heavily into the large supermarkets. The industry has kept trying to consolidate which may lead to less aggressive action (supermarkets are fully aware of how damaging their behaviour has been), but the govt has been blocking this to keep food prices low. One big change was Aldi/Lidl who have introduced more diversity into the supply chain without compromising on price...but that is only in some verticals, and their general position towards farmers is still quite aggressive. But the pursuit of extremely low prices and consumer value is not a sign of decline.

Veen 4y ago

I've just been to my local farm shop (I live in a rural area of the UK). Lots of turnips, leeks, potatoes, and other vegetables readily available. I suspect that the humble turnip, having fallen out of fashion, isn't bought in huge numbers by the supermarkets. A small uptick in demand may have accounted for their entire supply.

talideon 4y ago

It's not all that long ago that they were threatening to starve Ireland because of the negotiations around the border. Plenty of food here right now! The only thing we have an issue with is tomatoes, and local tomatoes are about to come into season.

b800h 4y ago
Weds 22nd Feb: "Irish Examiner: Shortage of fruit and vegetables 'a wake-up call' on impact of climate change" https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41076908.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41076908.html Tue 21st Feb "Irish Times: Supply of vegetables to Ireland disrupted by poor weather and energy costs" https://www.irishtimes.com/food/2023/02/21/supply-of-vegetables-to-ireland-disrupted-by-poor-weather-and-energy-costs/ https://www.irishtimes.com/food/2023/02/21/supply-of-vegetab...
- talideon 4y ago
  Yup! Hence my mention of tomatoes, which is the main place where I've seen any disruption. I'm not saying that there's no disruption here, but Ireland is a lot more food secure than the UK. Our shortages are relatively minor compared to the UK, which is what makes their earlier attempts to threaten us with food shortages somewhat funny.
  - b800h 4y ago
    "Shortages reported in broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and courgettes" Those are the same ones as the UK. Except the turnips (allegedly).
    - talideon 4y ago
      Haven't noticed much of a lack of any of them other than jalapeños specifically. There's no shortage of cruciferous vegetables, lettuce, or gourds. I've a bunch of sweet peppers sitting on my fridge. We grow plenty of all those, except peppers and tomatoes.

skipants 4y ago

> Tory colleague Selaine Saxby said supermarkets are importing “far too many products” Yikes -- do the Tories not have any economists at their disposal or do they just choose not to listen to them?

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
This is 100% true. We rely very heavily on imports in winter. The majority of this stuff can be grown in the UK but isn't because UK supermarkets are obsessed with lower prices. We need more onshore production and higher prices. If you look at tomatoes, we actually had some domestic production but these places chose not to grow this winter knowing that supermarkets wouldn't pay the higher price. So they rely heavily on places like Morocco and Kenya that can offer lower prices, and sometimes that doesn't work out. I had a friend whose family ran one of the largest potato farms in the UK. They stopped working with supermarkets in the 90s because it was so horrendous (Tesco notoriously used to do multi-hour contract negotiations with farmers, they would deliberately not give them seats so they had to stand for the whole thing and turn the heat up in the room without giving them water, they also had specialist negotiators who were notoriously abusive...this is how the largest supermarket behaves), they did food service, and then they went into food manufacturing. It was the only way to retain margins (many of the largest food groups in the UK came out of farms that needed to keep moving up the supply chain because of pressure from supermarkets).
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  Supermarkets obsessing over lower prices is a good thing actually. Cheap food is like the first things societies need to be functional. Sucks for farmers, but the rest of us are eating good because of the work the markets put in.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Not when you already have extremely low prices. We aren't talking about massive numbers, literally pence in the kg. Most consumers wouldn't notice any difference, it is all totally pointless. The same is happening with eggs, with milk, supermarkets are playing "hard ball" with people whose choice is: receive the higher price, or produce nothing...we took the produce nothing option. We need local production that rewards people for work and investment. And you are saying "cheap food" is needed...okay, the price is low but there is no food. How does no food rank on your system of things required in society? You are clueless because you are, presumably, imagining somewhere like the US where food is cripplingly expensive. That isn't the case here, food is cheap but so cheap that often results in there being no supply of some products. People can't conceive of farmers and workers actually needing money to buy their own food.

benj111 4y ago

No tomatoes in 2 supermarkets today. The egg section has seemed quite Soviet for quite a while. Now the veg aisle is getting the same way.

nivenkos 4y ago
But the prices are incredibly low. When I came back to Sweden, here we don't have a tomato shortage, but the price has gone up to about 9 GBP per kg - so not much difference in reality.
- benj111 4y ago
  I thought this was a Brexit thing. Evidently not.
lonelyasacloud 4y ago
Shortages in eggs and chicken are mainly down to precautions around trying to contain the spread of avian influenza.

i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago

Well, that’s Baldrick’s cunning plan out of the window then.