St Leonards greengrocer says trade is 'struggling' due to fruit and vegetable shortages

Stewart Desborough, owner of Sussex Fruits, in Bexhill Road, said demand was outstripping supply for vegetables, meaning prices were going up.

Spain and north Africa are currently experiencing extreme weather such as hail, snow and floods, affecting their harvests and as a result has had an impact on stock levels in the UK.

Supermarkets are also putting a limit on the amount of fruit and vegetables customers can buy.

Stewart said: "We have struggled over the last six months. It’s been very difficult with the energy crisis and everything else that’s going on.

“You have got massive shortages in supermarkets because in southern Europe it’s cold, nothing is growing and that reflects on higher prices of tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes.

"We have been well supported by the community and try to source produce locally wherever we can.

"We go to London twice a week to the wholesale market there that consumes 2,000 to 3,000 pallets of produce a night. There are 100 wholesalers there but they are struggling to get produce from Europe. We can get it but demand is outdoing the supply, so packets of tomatoes, which are normally £6 to £8 for a 4kg box, are £22 at the moment.

"The fruit situation changes dramatically. Once you get a bit of sunshine and warmth in Spain and Morocco, there will be plenty of produce and things will be back to normal. But whether the prices will come back to what people are used to paying, I doubt it.

"I think you will see a 25 to 50 per cent increase in everything.”

He said during the lockdowns trade was good for the shop, saying trade ‘quadrupled overnight’. Stewart said the shop does not use plastic wrappings and sells bowls of fruit/veg for £1.

He added it was because the supermarkets’ supply system ‘crashed’, meaning they could not fulfil their deliveries and customers flocked to Sussex Fruits.

He said: “We were delivering 40 to 50 fruit boxes a day around Hastings and St Leonards and people were really grateful for that. But those people are gone now. Once the supermarkets were back we lost those customers.”