The current tomato shortage in the UK has had a profound impact on supermarkets all across the country. From rationing tomato stock, to supermarket shelves being completely void of our favourite fruit, shoppers and producers alike don’t know when this will come to an end.
Many growers across the UK have attributed this tomato shortage to poor weather conditions as well as the rising cost of living. This has resulted in reduced volumes of imported fruit. With a lot of Northern Europe delaying or not planting lit crops, due to the energy markets, many UK supermarkets have relied on more fruit from southern Europe and northern Africa this winter.
Our lit crop is in production producing Roterno, Strabena and Yelorita, at Sandylands. This normally starts in November but we delayed planting last year due to uncertainty on energy costs so started picking in early January.
So, we are in production during this fruit shortage and our conventional crops will be no later than normal starting later this week and mid to late March in other locations. UK growers in general expect most of the conventional crops to be in production in April which is a normal start date.
