After several weeks of low supplies, some UK supermarkets rationed vegetables like iceberg lettuce, broccoli and aubergines. Also the supply of some tomato varieties is still very low.
According to the latest data from market intelligence service ProduceView, the prices for cucumbers are still on the rise in the British supermarkets. Almost all of the retailers increased the price of the cucumbers by 5p last week. The first Dutch cucumbers have arrived and are being sold at Morrissons for 50 pence per cucumber. Tesco bought its cucumbers last week from an unusual supplier - Greece. The Greek cucumbers were sold at Tesco for 60 pence. All of the other retailers visited were offering Spanish cucumbers. The lowest priced cucumbers could be found at Aldi for 47p.
Just like the rationed vegetables, baby plum tomatoes are also low in supply. Only Tesco (Morocco), M&S (Portugal), Waitrose and Lidl (Spain) had them available. After several weeks of promotion, the Moroccan baby plum tomatoes at Tesco saw a sharp price increase from 2,10 £/KG to 3 £/KG.
The supply of red bell peppers is more stable: Asda has been buying them in Holland for three months in a row, Sainsbury and Tesco offered Israeli red peppers and all of the other supermarkets offer Spanish red bell peppers. Prices are stable too; the average costs is still about 50p per pepper, only Lidl increased its price by 10p to 60p this week.
