The Great British Tomato Mystery
Q: What’s red and not there?
A: No tomatoes.
This week my social media timelines have been filled with pictures like this of British supermarket shelves bereft of salad vegetables, especially tomatoes. The UK Government has stated, through its mouthpiece the BBC, that this is due to unseasonably bad weather in Spain and Morocco, although I very much doubt this is the whole story.
There have been reports of similar shortages in Ireland but all I can do is report on my own experience. Because I live on my own in a small town with plenty of shops nearby I don’t do a big weekly trip to the supermarket but prefer to buy fresh things as and when I need them, usually on the way home from work. I therefore generally pop into Dunnes and/or Supervalu every day. On no occasion this week have I noticed any shortage of tomatoes or other salad ingredients in Maynooth, despite always going in the evening when you might expect the shelves to be depleted. I found plenty of nice tomatoes from both Spain and Morocco, though the ones I actually bought – of the cherry vine variety – are from Italy. People living elsewhere in Ireland may of course have experienced shortages, but I certainly haven’t.
In the Dark 
February 26, 2023 at 9:42 pm
Indeed it is not the whole story. The bad weather around the Western Med would affect Irish and British markets equally yet, as you say, Ireland is OK. The problem is, as I suspected, the absurdly high cost of energy to heat UK growers’ greenhouses during winter. Which in turn is due to the UK’s absurd energy policies. Now Rishi Sunak has created a “Department of Energy Security and Net Zero” – two objectives that are totally incompatible and diametrically opposed. Don’t blame civil servants for being unable to do the impossible.
February 27, 2023 at 10:02 am
No problems where I live in NI.
February 27, 2023 at 10:26 am
Lots of empty shelves in my local Tesco in Dublin.
February 27, 2023 at 10:39 am
I don’t often shop in Tesco in Maynooth so I don’t know if there’s a problem there. I have heard though that Tesco is the worst affected supermarket chain in Ireland. Could that be because they’re using the same supply chains as the UK?