Concern over shortage of fruit and veg due to poor weather in Spain

When temperatures go below 0C, plants stop producing and close in on themselves as a protective measure.

Irish retailers have expressed concern about a shortage in availability of certain fruit and vegetables with items such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers proving to be harder to source because of poor weather conditions in Europe.

The managing director of Jackie Leonard and Sons, a wholesale fruit and vegetable supplier in Dublin, said Spain has experienced "16 consecutive nights of below freezing temperatures over the last three weeks".

Justin Leonard said when temperatures go below 0C, plants stop producing and close in on themselves as a protective measure.

"As a result there is just no product available to be harvested," he said. "This is a problem that is going to continue for another two to three weeks, if not longer, because unfortunately we are also coming towards the end of the Spanish season.

"In the winter months, the bulk of all the produce we would eat in Europe would come from Spain and in the summer months the produce would come from Holland, the UK and ourselves, or local produce as we call it."

Mr Leonard, whose family business celebrated its 130th year in operation last December, said there is normally a nice crossover between the seasons in terms of supply. However, this year there are issues in relation to sourcing.

"The Spanish season would generally end around the end of March. And the Dutch season would start in early April, coming in to May," he told RTÉ's News at One.

"But this year due to the energy crisis the Dutch growers are not heating their glasshouses earlier than they would in order to get their product to market quicker. It is just simply not viable to do so.

"We are coming to the end of the Spanish season but unfortunately the Dutch season isn't going to start on time and, if anything, will start a little later."

He added that impacted items include broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and courgettes.

Unfortunately, we don't have anywhere else to turn to in order to supplement supply. It is a seller's market.

"The growers and producers do have a certain amount but the demand is not suppliable. And therefore the prices go up.

"And where product is available, the quantities required to keep everybody happy are just not there. As a result we have seen a nearly 300% increase in the cost of basic items like peppers.

"And that goes all the way down to the consumer, your local restaurant, cafe, supermarket, your local corner shop, or greengrocer."

Mr Leonard said Irish winter vegetables are also more scarce this year because of poor weather conditions.

Prior to Christmas we had about nine days consecutive days of temperatures from 0C to -5C.

"So our own product the likes of celery, carrots and cabbage they weren't growing. Also because of the extremely dry and hot summer we had last year yields are down.

"We are down about 30% on potato crops, and down between 25% and 30% on carrot crops.

"So in turn we don't have our own produce to fall back on. You can see from the weather coming up that it might be nice weather for making stew but unfortunately you might be stuck for a carrot.

"Mother Nature always has a way of repairing herself so time will tell (in terms of improvements) and we have to sit back and wait."