Connor Bland‘We were not given any guidance’
Between the end of February and first few weeks of March the United Kingdom experienced a fruit and vegetables shortage which led to country wide panic and rationing of food for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shortages were as a result of an unusually cold winter in Spain and Morocco that slowed down production and increased fuel prices in the UK which impacted British farm production.
I spoke to Tesco checkout supervisor Sophie Ashmore about her experience during the food crisis.
Q: What food shortages did you have at Tesco?
R: Mostly salad items such as peppers, lettuces, cucumbers and tomatoes.
Q: How long were the shortages for?
R: Approximately a month.
Q: How did the shortages impact the store?
R: We had to restrict items (peppers and tomatoes) to 3 packs per customer.
Q: How did the shortages impact the customers?
R: Small businesses in the area were unable to source these items that they usually buy in bulk from us.
Q: How did the shortages impact the staff?
R: Increased conflict amongst staff and customers, was often hard to explain to customers why we had these restrictions in place as we were not given any guidance as to how to explain to the customers why these restrictions were in place.
Q: Were you given updates from managers with regards to how long it would last to enable you to update customers?
R: No, we just received a message from management to say there were restrictions and then another a month later to say these had been lifted.
Q: Did the managers let you know the reason for the problems?
R: No.
One of the small businesses affected was a farm cafe local to Derby that were unable to get supplies of tomatoes which led to some dishes being taken off of the menu, this is what kitchen worker Cameron Collins had to say about the situation:
