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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 eve
by 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 agoOh, don't let that get in the way of a good anti-Brexit story! Come on, man!
- bee_rider 4y agoEasier trade would help smooth over short-term shortages.
- b800h 4y agoAs 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 agoWhy is this a uniquely British problem?
- b800h 4y agoWe 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.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y agoLooks like Agile to me: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60111856 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60111856 (source: worked as a mainframe engineer in an "Agile" team a large financial corp).
- dazc 4y agoThe people who complain about shortages of produce are the same people who complain prices being too high. As a consequence, supermarkets have become reliant on overseas producers who, sometimes, are not able to meet demand. People want to buy locally produced fruit and vegetables but they do not want the people who pick it to have a decent standard of living.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dazc 4y agoI saw a lady with a basket full of cucumbers in the supermarket the other day. I have never in my life bought a single cucumber and managed to consume the whole thing before it has gone off. I can sympathize with supermarkets having to try and mitigate every panic buying frenzy that the media are all too willing to encourage.
- rcme 4y ago> I saw a lady with a basket full of cucumbers in the supermarket the other day. I have never in my life bought a single cucumber and managed to consume the whole thing before it has gone off. I think this is more of a reflection on you than it is on frenzied buying. It's pretty easy to eat multiple cucumbers a week if you like them.
- dazc 4y agoApologies for being judgemental, buying a basket full of cucumbers (it was actually every cucumber on the shelf, at the time) is in no way selfish, especially on the same day that a shortage of cucumbers makes headline news?
- Veen 4y agoThey won't. Brexit and the Tories must be bemoaned every time a UK story appears on HN.
- olddustytrail 4y agoWhen there's a train wreck, it's difficult to talk about the train without mentioning the wreck.
- jjgreen 4y ago"Swedes to be renamed 'victory tomatoes'" Brexiteers proclaim
- xxpor 4y agoWhy are all of these things in Ukrainian supermarkets then?
- b800h 4y agoBecause Ukraine is in the EU? I don't know, you tell me.
- docdeek 4y agoFWIW Ukraine is not in the EU.
- megous 4y agoIt's not. But it's a huge agricultural country the size of France, located in a different area.
- b800h 4y agoYes, that was sarcasm.
- xxpor 4y agoIt's also the middle of a war zone. Why is it easier to get tomatoes there than the UK? Why can't the UK use its massive GDP advantage to get them?
- b800h 4y agoI had some lovely tomatoes last night. I expect it's just that Ukranian newspapers have better things to discuss than cucumber shortages, so there's no panic buying.
- rcme 4y agoInterestingly, none of those reasons were listed in this article from December which seems to have perfectly predicted the current shortage. The article from December made it seem like farmers were squeezed by rising costs of labor, fertilizer, and other inputs and were facing buyers unwilling to budge on the price. So their only option was to reduce output.
- mardifoufs 4y agoI think that could be right for turnips, but the produce shortages are, I think, not related. The weather in morocco has been pretty bad for vegetables, and agriculture there is extremely rain dependant. Not a good year for produce, and the moroccan government is pressured to lower exports even more since the optics of exporting food products that are scarce to europe is extremely bad.
- fivefifty 4y agoThe local producers did reduce output for those reasons, supermarkets etc instead went to source replacement produce from overseas, but those overseas suppliers also had a poor season and couldn't supply enough.