Fruits and vegetables are being rationed in supermarkets as grocers struggle to source enough fresh produce.
Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons have all imposed limits on the number of peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes customers can buy, with warnings from some industry experts that restrictions could be in place for weeks.
Other supermarkets have experienced shortages but have not yet imposed measures to limit purchases.
Tesco and Aldi have restricted customers to buying just three of each of tomatoes, cucumbers and pepers, while Morrisons shoppers can only buy two cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuces and peppers.
Asda will only allow three purchases of salad bags, lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers cauliflowers and raspberries per customer.
Why is there a shortage of fruit and vegetables?
Retailers have blamed bad weather in Morocco and Spain for the shortages. Britain sources fruit and vegetables from both countries and both have had a difficult harvest.
Spanish farms have been hit by cold spells, while Morocco has experienced flooding and plunging temperatures. Bad weather earlier this month also delayed shipments out of Morocco, a country which Britain has increasingly come to rely on for tomatoes over the winter.
Surging fertiliser prices, linked to the war in Ukraine, have also led to lower yields in the fields. All this has disrupted trade.
Homegrown produce has also been hit by soaring costs. In the UK, higher electricity prices have made growing fruit and vegetables in greenhouses over winter significantly more expensive. The National Farmers Union has warned surging costs have caused many farmers to cut back on production while some have been driven out of the industry completely.
Former Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King has also blamed Brexit for the shortages.
Mr King, who led the supermarket for almost a decade, told BBC's Radio 4 Today Programme that the UK food industry had been "significantly disrupted by Brexit", as the sector was "very integrated across Europe".
How long will shortages go on for?
The British Retail Consortium expects disruption to last a few weeks as supermarkets manage a poor harvest in southern Spain and Morocco.
Moroccan officials have said weather has now returned to normal and its agriculture industry is now getting back to business as usual.
Tomatoes are grown in Britain, but the season does not begin until late March. The British Tomato Growers Association has said it expects “significant volumes” of British tomatoes to hit shelves by the end of March, which should ease pressure and end rationing.
Liz Webster, head of campaign group Save British Farming, said shortages could recur in future years.
Ms Webster said: "We live on an island in a particularly difficult climate with a very short growing season. If we don’t have any food security in a world which is chaotic, we know what happens because it happened in the last two World Wars - we are exposed to a food crisis."
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMibWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRlbGVncmFwaC5jby51ay9idXNpbmVzcy8yMDIzLzAyLzIzL2Zvb2Qtc2hvcnRhZ2VzLWZydWl0LXZlZ2V0YWJsZXMtcmF0aW9uaW5nLXN1cGVybWFya2V0cy10ZXNjby_SAQA?oc=5
2023-02-23 20:19:00Z
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