The iceberg lettuce shortage is only the beginning. Brexit will have a huge effect on the food we buy. Best to fall back on some great British veg
I must be honest. I can’t say that I’m suffering too much, in this, the Great Iceberg Lettuce Shortage. Even before I discovered that at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, they serve a dish called Mr Trump’s Wedge Salad (of which iceberg lettuce is, we hope and pray, the primary ingredient), I wasn’t too keen on the stuff. But in any case, in these parts there’s no sign at all of a crisis. My local corner shop currently has three outside it, albeit a touch yellow at the edges, and the amazing greengrocer up the road – the one that was once in Vogue– still has trays of the things, not to mention all the other veg (aubergines, broccoli, courgettes) of which the bad weather in Spain is supposed to be depriving us. What does this mean? Is the Great Iceberg Lettuce Shortage an example of fake news? Or is it just that I live in a place where people would rather eat rocket?
Let’s assume, though, that somewhere desperate lettuce hounds are indeed waving 50-quid notes at supermarket staff. Aren’t such shortages in reality a good thing? As experts (I know, I know) such as Professor Tim Lang of City University have already taken the trouble to point out, Brexit is likely to have a momentous effect on the food we buy. Food stocks in Britain are low: an estimated three to five days’ worth; our self-sufficiency stands at only 61%; we get 30% of our food from the EU. Meanwhile, a lot of what we do produce here is picked and packaged by foreign workers. In the long term, we need to start worrying about the way food production affects climate change and vice versa. In the short term, prices are likely to rise dramatically. Basically, we need to start thinking about food security pronto, and if it’s the want of a bowl of winter ratatouille that focuses minds, then so be it.
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