I don't live in the UK so I wouldn't know, but no one seems to be denying that there are shortages of some things in some places. Just yesterday Theresa Coffrey said in parliament that people should eat turnips instead of tomatoes and the supermarkets have said that shortages may last until April, so who am I to disagree with them. I also understand from friends that there are no shortages in the the smaller shops, who have a different supply chain. 

The food supply chain in the UK is something Jay Rayner has been writing about for years. These are his thoughts:

"A bit of a summary. As a result of various govt policies over decades a dozen or so supermarket businesses now control 95% of food retail. They have used that power to undermine the financial base of UK farming. Self sufficiency has fallen because we haven't paid enough. 2/The supermarkets assumed they could always source from abroad because we had financial muscle. But a) other economies - China, India - emerged to buy the crops we used to buy and b) Brexit shoved us to the back of the queue. Make no mistake. This IS systemically about Brexit 3/ The UK gov has historically never prioritised Agriculture. A 2006 Cabinet Office report under Labour into food security, was nicknamed the 'leave it to Tesco' report because it basically said we could always buy our way out of any crisis. 4/That failure continues. We can grow salad veg under glass in the UK year round, reducing our dependency on imports. But the govt chose not to help growers with their energy bills, because they have never understood food security. 5/Justin King formerly of Sainsbury's summarised it nicely on
@bbcr4today this morning. Slight cause for eye rolling because I do see supermarkets and their buying policies over decades as significantly culpable. Here's a nice summary plus screenshots 6/ theguardian.com/business/live/2023/feb/23/uk-shortages-fruit-vegetables-supermarkets-bae-systems-inflation-stock-markets-business-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-63f709028f08ea98983aa7c7#block-63f709028f08ea98983aa7c 7In short, I bloody told you so. Which perhaps isn't helpful. But it's all I've got. Here's a link to the book where I really got into it. It's ten years old. But what do you know? it's not out of date. 7/ ends

Which sort of makes my point about it being a combination of factors. The least important is probably the weather, because there has always been 'weather'. The question British residents should be asking is why their supplies are iffy and all over the rest of Europe they aren't. Even Ukraine is managing to get enough fruit and vegetables on to the shelves at the moment.

And just to be clear, the bit related to Brexit is that prior to Brexit British buyers (the supermarkets) had the clout to buy what ever they wanted as they were part of a massive trading block. Now they aren't..and other big(ger) players have also entered the market. If China and the Eu offer to buy all your tomatoes or turnips and then Britain comes in and offers the same money or less for a tiny percentage of your produce what do you say? And I use the term Britain deliberately, because at the moment it appears that there are no shortages in NI and Ireland who are still part of the single market.

No sign of fruit and veg shortages at Morrison's this morning. However, in common with all the supermarkets there are plenty of empty shelves throughout the store - the products in short supply vary from week to week. Clearly there is a transport/supply issue that remains unresolved.

Are European supermarkets suffering similar issues?

I'm in Ireland next week. Be interesting to see if they are similarly affected.

The only salad-type food I buy in winter is tomatoes; not been shopping for several weeks due to having a replacement knee, but the shopping lists my husband has gone to the local shops with every couple of days has had tomatoes on each time - none available.

Today was my first outing as far as the shops, following a short walk round the football pitches; into our small suburban M&S Food store and there were organic tomatoes in 200g packs at £2.50 each. Wow, £10 per kilo, expensive!

They also had 2 cucumbers on the fridge shelves alongside the tomatoes, a few packs of ready-prepared salads, but the long display fridges were otherwise empty. 

Not much chance of urgency/help with this lot Jackie, Get a better paid job and eat Turnips is the governments response........

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/food-shortages-supermarkets-jobs-coffey-b2288054.html

news.sky.com/story/therese-coffey-suggests-people-struggling-to-afford-food-should-work-more-hours-12817890

It will be tough going to produce a Bolognaise sauce from turnips.

An interesting article here about how Ireland and Northern France have benefited from Brexit.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/25/ports-france-ireland-brexit-cherbourg-rosslare

The relevance to this thread is, whatever your views as to whether Brexit is a direct cause of the current salad shortage in the UK, there is no doubt that other countries and people were well aware of the potential threats and opportunities posed by Brexit and got in there and planned for it..in a way the the UK has seemed spectacularly unable to to do (maybe because it was never able to acknowledge any of the downsides).
There is also an interesting thread on Twitter, by Daniel Lambert (wine importer who used to be based in the UK but had to move his business to France after Brexit in order for it to stay viable..ie someone who didn't just stick his head in the sand about the consequences). The gist of it is below (without the pictures

"So@skynews: you wanted to see if there are food shortages in the EU. So here are my photos taken on Tuesday in Bridgend Sainsbury’s and today in Intermarche in Jacou, Southern France. Now @theresecoffey may want to blame the weather, but I suggest you reconsider. Here is the photos I took from Bridgend ( I should say it was the same at Waitrose Cowbridge and Tesco in Cardiff).(Pictures of empty shelves…And now let’s have a little look at this morning shop where everything was in stock I wanted…(Intermarche in France..with two videos of counters brimming with salad and tomatoes). There is no food shortage in the EU, literally you have video evidence! Moreover yet Again the Tories are gaslighting you and yup you guessed it, the reason for UK shortages is 100% to do with government border controls and #Brexit. But they don’t want to tell you that…The government have not just gaslit the country they are literally stopping UK supermarkets from being able to function correctly. I know how hard there buyers work and its not their fault. This is on every Brexiteer and the the corrupt Tory government who lie at will.
Daniel's details of his experiences with trying to operate his business from the UK during the brexit transition and just after are also worth reading