Has Spain's weather really caused fresh food shortages in UK supermarkets?

The United Kingdom is in the midst of a huge shortage of certain vegetables and fruit, with supermarket chains such as Morrisons and Asda deciding to limit the sale of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries to two or three items or trays per shopper. 

Adverse weather conditions in Spain and Morocco, where the UK gets much of its fresh produce during the winter months, has been largely blamed for the scarcity of certain fresh produce.

"It's been snowing and hailing in Spain, it was hailing in North Africa last week - that is wiping out a large proportion of those crops," executive director of upmarket supermarket Waitrose James Bailey told the UK’s LBC Radio. 

Spain has indeed had periods of extremely cold weather and heavy rain in January and February, and another "polar front" is forecast in the coming days. Even in sunny southeast Spain where much of the country's fruit and vegetables are grown, temperatures dropped well below zero on several consecutive nights in January.

But there is no evidence of a shortage of fresh produce in Spanish supermarkets and markets, with the shelves filled up to their usual standards. 

Been seeing posts from @Otto_English @dontbrexitfixit @edwinhayward @SaveBritishFood et al speaking of food shortages, and in every case someone pops up with the "no tomatoes because bad weather in Spain"

Seeing as I live here, I popped into every shop on my way home just now... pic.twitter.com/k4C6K4JOLM

— Daily Racist (@ShihabSJoi) February 21, 2023

A number of Britons based in Spain have shared videos of their local supermercados (supermarkets) to highlight how their fruit and vegetable aisles are awash with tomatoes and peppers.

I see Brexit’s going well then (your usual weekly, now becoming daily reminder) Meanwhile my local Mercadona is… pic.twitter.com/NjHBvg89Hu

— Graham Hunt (Valencia Property) 🦣 @grahunt (@grahunt) February 22, 2023

This has raised the question of whether increased energy costs for UK farmers and Brexit’s impact on the recruitment of foreign agricultural workers are playing a bigger role in the United Kingdom’s current food shortages and inability to grow more of its own produce, along with the added red tape for EU farmers exporting to the UK.

That’s not to say that adverse weather hasn’t had an impact on harvests in southeast Spain, where the UK gets 20 percent of its tomatoes from. 

There are also reports that the supply of vegetables to Ireland is being disrupted by Spain's bad weather and high energy costs.

According to Coexphal, the Association of Organisations of Fruit and Vegetable Producers of Almería, a warm autumn and early winter followed by “persevering” low temperatures are putting the supply of fruit and vegetables across Europe “at risk”. 

The group cites a 22 percent drop in tomato harvests, 25 percent fewer peppers, a 21 percent decrease in cucumber numbers and a 15 percent reduction in zucchini numbers.

The video below posted by an Almería farmer in January shows how his pepper crops suffered due to temperatures of as low as -4 C, despite the double layer of greenhouse plastic sheeting and other protective measures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN3t6L8OwJE

“Currently, practically the only European region where fruit and vegetables are produced is the Spanish southeast and we’re going to great lengths to meet this demand,” Coexphal manager Luis Miguel Fernández was quoted as saying by Spanish news agency Europa Press.

A vast swathe of agricultural land in Almería province is referred to as the 'sea of plastic' (mar de plástico) given that the sheer amount of greenhouse plastic sheets that are visible from space, and are responsible for 40 percent of Spain’s fruit and vegetable exports. 

READ MORE: What is Spain's 'sea of plastic' and how important is it to the UK's food supply?

Practically all of the produce stays in Europe (99.5 percent, 81 percent in the EU in 2021) with the main export markets being Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Poland. 

Almería has therefore come to be known as 'Europe’s vegetable patch', helping to consolidate Spain as the main producer of vegetables and fruits in the EU in 2020 and 2021.

So it’s no surprise that any harvesting issue they face has the potential to be felt across the continent.

But why is the UK being impacted more greatly than other European nations? Is Brexit really the defining factor or has it been a combination of different circumstances that are to blame?

Perhaps the best interpretation is that of Pekka Pesonen, Secretary General of agricultural group Copa-Cogeca, who told Euronews that the UK should be wary of “tipping the delicate balance of trade channel” and that “even if it's a minor change to the supply routes and supply chains, it may have a significant impact through operators that opt for the easier way somewhere else”.