Italian restaurants forced to remove items from menu as food shortages create ‘perfect storm’

The hospitality sector is now being hit by food shortages

Italian restaurants in the UK are being forced to change menus and drop meals as food shortages begin to hit the hospitality sector.

The UK has been hit with shortages since the weekend due to adverse weather in Spain and Morocco, transport problems and other factors. Among the food items affected are tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and broccoli.

Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Tesco are among major supermarkets rationing fresh produce, while the supply chain issues.

Empty shelves at a Tesco supermarket in central London (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Italian restaurants, which are heavily reliant on tomatoes as a base ingredient in meals such as pizza and pasta sauces, are now making changes to menus to accommodate the shortages, an industry leader has said.

Jim Winship, director of the UK Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association said there has been a “perfect storm” of issues since the UK came out of the pandemic.

He said although many Italian restaurants rely on canned tomatoes more than fresh produce, the implications of the shortages are already being felt.

“It feels like it’s just one thing after the other,” he told The Independent.

“It’s been a very challenging time for everyone which has not been helped by the cost of living crisis we’re in at the moment.

“Restaurants are now substituting where they can and changing menus where there are shortages. In some cases things are just getting dropped off menus where substitutions are diffiuclt, because you can’t really replace tomatoes in a product, particularly pizza.

Fruit and vegetables are scarce within the UK (PA)

“We’re just kind of shaking our heads and thinking what’s going to come down the road.”

He added that high energy prices are a principal issue behind British farmers reducing their fresh food produce. Energy costs meant farmers put down fewer crops than they usually would - a supply that could have helped the current shortages from abroad.

As a result of high energy bills, some restaurants are forced to close additional days in the week.

But for restaurants, there’s no predicting what issue could arise next.

“Generally we think things will ease in the latter part of this year and food shortages to return to their previous volumes by March,” Mr Winsip said.

“When you have so many setbacks it’s difficult to predict what could hit next.”

Some experts have pointed the finger at Brexit, with former Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King telling LBC the supermarket sector has been “hurt horribly” by Britain’s departure from the EU.

Posting on Twitter, Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall called on his followers based in mainland European countries to post photos of their supermarket shelves and implied he also blamed Brexit.

Empty fruit and vegetable shelves at an Asda (PA)

He tweeted: “For the sake of balanced fairness can some of our mainland European friends pls post photos of their supermarket food shortages? Tx in advance. #BrexitBenefits”.

Analysing the factors influencing the shortages, Save British Farming chair Liz Webster said in a video shared today: “The reason that we have food shortages in Britain, and that we don’t have food shortages in Spain – or anywhere else in the European Union – is because of Brexit, and also because of this disastrous Conservative government that has no interest in food production, farming or even food supply.”

UK Hospitality, which is also works in connection with the Restaurants Association, said some hospitality businesses are experiencing “intermittent disruption” to fresh food supplies but there are yet to be widespread shortages.

“Hospitality continues to work hard to boost the resilience of its supply chain in order to manage any disruption, including having a multi-source supply and sourcing local where possible,” chief executive Kate Nicholls said.