Overview
- Shoppers are seeing sporadic shelf gaps for strawberries, raspberries, avocados and peppers at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Lidl.
- Weeks of torrential rain and flooding, including impacts from Storm Leonardo, damaged crops and disrupted harvesting in Andalucía and northern Morocco.
- The British Retail Consortium says contingency sourcing is under way to limit disruption, with tighter availability also reported for purple sprouting broccoli, bok choi and some citrus.
- The Fresh Produce Consortium warns shoppers may face short‑term price increases and urges people not to panic buy.
- Retail expert Ben Davies expects disruption to last roughly two to six weeks, while early analysis suggests a marine heatwave likely intensified the storms linked to climate risk.