[1] "According to the BBC report, the UK “imports around 95% of its tomatoes and 90% of its lettuces, most of them from Spain and north Africa, according to trade group the British Retail Consortium (BRC).”
Morocco has responded to the shortage claims by noting that the extreme weather that has been sweeping the country has had a huge impact on fresh produce."
>In the UK, competition law prevents jacking up the price during a supply interruption
UK Supermarkets have contracts with suppliers which are not brilliant, its how supermarkets have become the controlling middleman in the food supply chain in the UK, and as they also employ large numbers of people in the UK, some 2nd only to the NHS which is the largest employer in the world making the USSR seem febrile, they can hold the British Govt to ransom with employment figures, like one did in the 90's when Labour got into power.
Just about the only thing they have honoured in the past is the MOD orders for food get picked first at the expense of the store's orders, during the Balkans conflict.
If a law or regulation does not exist for some activity, it will be exploited if it can make the supermarket money and they are so slow paying, ignoring your supplier credit terms, typically taking 6 months to pay up. They offload admin costs onto you by making you submit your invoices into their systems, but you can pay for a more streamlined efficient way to submit your invoices as another example.
They are not alone though, all big businesses have their questionable tricks, and one of the major causes of these shortages is lack of investment in the supply chain for extreme weather, in this case cold weather that hit north Africa and Spain. The UK has been living too cheaply, through efficiency and lack of investment, something COVID also highlighted to the world with JIT supply chains.
Elements of the global supply chain had little to no redundancy built into it for "natural" events, which COVID highlighted and ionosphere heaters[2] continue to highlight under the guise of extreme weather events! [3] The science is out there if you want to be informed and not be fed your opinions.
[1] https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2023/02/354180/food-shortag...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionospheric_heater
[3] https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=846f8785-9613-4...