The UK is battling a fruit and vegetable crisis, with supermarket shelves running empty. Tomatoes are the worst affected as the government blames the food shortage on bad weather in southern Europe and north Africa. Electricity prices are also soaring, leading to produce grown in greenhouses in Britain and the Netherlands also seeing a huge rise in prices.
Pizzerias in the country are cutting out on tomatoes entirely amid rising prices, with Italian restaurants being forced to ration them. The result is pasta and pizzas without any tomatoes. Tomato prices have gone up nearly fourfold in the last one year in the country. According to Federazione Italian Cuochi UK (FIC UK), a chefs’ association, a case of tomato now costs £20, up from £5 a case. The price of canned tomatoes has doubled, rising from £15 a case to £30. Iceberg lettuce also costs a lot more now, rising from around £7 a box to £22.
Enzo Oliveri, FIC UK’s president, told Guardian that rising prices and the Brexit crisis are causing an extremely difficult time for Italian restaurants and some of them might soon go out of business. “I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
He says most of the people source tomatoes from Italy, Spain or Morocco. “But because there’s everywhere a shortage, there’s no tomatoes coming from any place,” he said.
While Oliveri has been working to secure high quality canned and crushed tomatoes, they are also seeing a massive shortage. Restaurants are coming up with ways to survive the crisis by introducing different food options, such as white pizzas. Oliveri says the government needs to cap tomato prices. “When the prices go up we’re in trouble. We cannot calculate the margins any more.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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