Britain is facing a shortage of vegetables, especially tomatoes, after supermarket supplies were hit by crop failures in southern Europe and North Africa, forcing two major grocers to limit what customers can buy, AFP reported.

The UK grocery chain Asda said on Tuesday that it had imposed a temporary restriction on the purchase of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, bagged lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.

“Like other supermarkets, we are experiencing supply issues with some products that are grown in southern Spain and northern Africa,” an Asda spokesman said.

Rival Morrisons said it would introduce a limit of two bags per customer on tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers from Wednesday.

Social networks were flooded with images of empty shelves of fruits and vegetables, especially the shortage of tomatoes.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents all the major supermarkets, including market leader Tesco and Sainsbury’s (No.2), said supply problems were widespread across the industry.

According to him, the difficult weather in southern Europe and northern Africa led to the failure of the harvest of a number of crops.

“While disruption is expected to last for several weeks, supermarkets are managing supply chain challenges and working with farmers to ensure customers have access to a wide range of fresh produce,” said Andrew Opie, BRC director of food and sustainability.

Food traders say the situation has worsened due to reduced winter production in greenhouses in the UK and the Netherlands due to high energy costs.

Although largely self-sufficient in summer, the UK typically imports 95% of its tomatoes and 90% of its lettuce between December and March, according to the BRC.

Britain is particularly dependent on Spain and, increasingly, Morocco, which earlier this month banned the export of tomatoes, onions and potatoes to West African countries to lower domestic prices and protect exports to Europe.

Spanish manufacturers have also expressed concern.

Snow and hail and “no Brexit”

James Bailey, chief executive of luxury supermarket Waitrose, said the extreme weather was to blame, not Brexit.

“We had snow and hail in Spain last week, hail in North Africa last week – that destroyed a lot of those crops,” he told LBC radio.

“Give us another couple of weeks and other growing seasons in other parts of the world will pick up and we can get those stocks back.”

Last year, British layouts suffered supply disruptions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but availability improved before Christmas, with the exception of eggs.

Other European countries were less affected than the UK, with Metro (Germany) saying it was unaffected.

“The situation is becoming alarming as some companies are starting to have problems meeting their customers’ schedules,” the Association of Fruit and Vegetable Producers of Almeria, Coexphal, said in a statement.