The BBC’s You and Yours program featured Phil Pearson, APS group development director last week. In the interview, he quoted: “It’s horrendous! Next year we will have to cut back our glasshouse growing by the equivalent of hundreds of football pitches.”
Every week, APS, the UK’s largest tomato packaging group, packs and distributes millions of tomato packages.
The tomatoes usually reach the market within 24 hours. But due to lack of HGV drivers and lack of staff at the production line, the delivery is not happening as expected and tonnes of produce is being wasted.
“We usually describe this period as the golden trading period.,” he added. “This year we’re going to run out.”
“Local people don’t want to work in the sector and any rise in wages will need to be passed on to the consumer.
“There’s such a huge volume that’s being wasted. It makes you want to cry.”
The National Farmers Union (NFU) reported in July that one in three seasonal worker vacancies were unfilled this year. 20 farms in the East of Scotland Growers Group recently threw away 5 million cauliflower and broccoli heads. According to Ian Brown, the situation is “heartbreaking.”
“It’s demoralising to produce the crop to its final stage and then not get it to its destination. It has incurred around £1m of cost to the growers, “ he said, describing how much of the harvested crops have had to be spread back on the land.
“The shortage of workers means that the farms are currently running at about eighty percent of their requirements”.
James Porter, Angus Berry Group grower, says: “Overall it’s cost me twenty five percent more than last year. It’s not been easy and because of that a lot of growers are rethinking what they are doing. I know of three growers who have decided to stop growing strawberries altogether.”
Peterson went on to say: “For prices on shelves, with our costs increasing, the cost of food will realistically have to rise by at least ten per cent. Unfortunately, the consumer will have to pay.”
