Supermarket shortages are coming – here are the foods most at risk

The potatoes destined for goose fat are currently sitting in dry soil, trying to become respectable roasties. The sprouts are out in the east of England, where water has become less a natural resource than a luxury subscription. Parsnips are being asked to grow long, straight and photogenic in ground that has the consistency of a pub car park.

The warning from farmers is real. England received only 3 per cent of its average July rainfall by the middle of the month, following three heatwaves. In much of the south and east, there had effectively been none. River flows were down, soils were exceptionally dry, and 1,327 restrictions were in place on licences that allow farmers to take water from rivers and other sources – almost twice as many as the week before.

In areas that depend on winter-filled reservoirs to irrigate crops through summer, stocks were reportedly down to around 30 to 50 per cent. It is a poor moment to discover that rain is not merely something that spoils a barbecue. Your Christmas dinner is having a difficult July too.

The potato is the obvious place to begin. It is popular, dependable and accustomed to being treated as though it simply appears from the earth already peeled. In fact, potatoes require a great deal of water, particularly when the tubers are bulking up.

Last year’s dry conditions produced a striking split. According to Defra, well-irrigated potato crops could yield more than 80 tonnes a hectare. Crops without irrigation produced as little as 30 tonnes. Some growers were watering every three days, applying roughly 25mm each time.

The first casualty of dry weather is not necessarily the existence of a potato, but the kind of potato supermarkets prefer to sell. Dry conditions can mean more small tubers and fewer of the large, evenly shaped ones suitable for baking, roasting or turning into chips of the sort that arrive stacked like Jenga at a gastropub.

Watering crops is expensive. Pumps require energy, irrigation requires equipment and none of it is especially useful when an abstraction restriction prevents the water being taken in the first place. Two neighbouring farms can sit under the same cloudless sky and have entirely different harvests, depending on which one owns a reservoir.

16%

There are buffers. Britain harvested 5.5 million tonnes of potatoes in 2025 and ended the year with stocks of more than 3 million tonnes. Domestic farms supplied 71 per cent of the potatoes in the UK, while imports already play a sizeable role in frozen chips and other processed products.

In other words, the better question is not whether potatoes will run out, but will be as large, as British or as cheap as shoppers expect?

The greens present a slightly less comforting picture. Brussels sprouts are a concern, and last year’s drought gives a fairly sobering indication of what can happen.

Around 60 per cent of Britain’s brassicas were planted in June and July last year for harvest through autumn, winter and the following spring. In extremely dry soil, plants established unevenly and yields fell even though growers had put more land into production.

Lincolnshire is particularly important. It produces a great deal of Britain’s brassica crop but many farms there have limited access to irrigation because the groundwater can be too saline. This is one of the less discussed difficulties of farming: sometimes there is water beneath the field, but it is the wrong sort.

Last year, total brassica production fell by 3.6 per cent. Broccoli yields dropped 16 per cent and production fell 11 per cent. Cauliflower yields were also down 11 per cent. Cabbage was badly affected because so much of it is grown in areas without an easy irrigation fix.

Later rain helped some autumn and winter crops recover, which is why the next ten days matters. But rain is not a magic undo button. A plant that established poorly in June does not necessarily become magnificent because August turns wet.

Wholesale prices are already flashing a few warning lights. The average price of a homegrown cauliflower reached £1.62 a head in Defra’s latest figures, up from £1.06 four weeks earlier and 89p at the same point last year. Calabrese – the type generally sold as broccoli – rose from £1.96 to £2.91 a kilogram over four weeks.

Vegetable prices are seasonal and these rises cannot be attributed solely to the drought. Still, they show how quickly difficulty in a field can become expense in a supermarket.

Sprouts remain more question than crisis. If yields are weaker, shoppers may see smaller sprouts, less consistent sizes, more imports and fewer of the giveaway festive bags that make growers wonder why they bothered.

Parsnips face their own indignities. Long dry spells can leave roots undersized, while sudden rain can cause them to split. The average wholesale price recently reached £1.41 a kilogram, 41 per cent higher than four weeks earlier, although still below the same point last year.

Carrots, meanwhile, provide a useful reason not to panic. They need plenty of water, but Britain’s large commercial carrot growers have invested heavily in irrigation. During last year’s dry weather, yields remained steady at 83 tonnes a hectare. Defra credited irrigation with protecting the crop and said the UK was largely self-sufficient in carrots for almost the whole year.

Their wholesale price has fallen over the past month, suggesting that the carrot may be the calmest thing on the plate.

Beyond the vegetable tray, the consequences become slower and less obvious. The cereal harvest began early in parts of East Anglia, while later-sown spring crops have struggled. Spring barley yields are expected to be weaker. Livestock farmers have reported poor grass growth and concerns about the amount of forage available for winter.

Millers can import wheat and adjust their blends. Brewers and maltsters have contracts, stocks and overseas suppliers. Farmers can buy extra feed, although they will not enjoy paying for it.

The effect is more likely to appear in costs than availability. Vegetables show the weather directly. Meat and dairy carry it forward, as farms enter winter with less grass and silage and more expensive feed bills.

Supermarkets have one particularly effective way of hiding all this: they shop elsewhere. British farms produced only 56 per cent of the fresh vegetables available in the UK last year. When the domestic crop struggles, retailers can bring in produce from abroad, assuming another country has enjoyed more stable weather and is willing to sell it at an acceptable price.

They can also change the rules. A smaller potato still roasts. A crooked parsnip tastes much the same once peeled. A cabbage does not need to resemble a cannonball. During previous difficult harvests, retailers have loosened their specifications and sold more undersized or imperfect produce rather than rejecting it.

This may be the most sensible consequence of the drought. Supermarkets have spent years training shoppers to expect vegetables of near-military uniformity. A bad harvest might remind everyone that food is grown rather than manufactured.

So will anything be taken off the menu this autumn or at Christmas? There should still be potatoes, sprouts, carrots, parsnips, bread, beer and turkey. What may change is where they come from, what they cost and how closely they resemble the picture on the packet.

British produce could finish earlier. Imports may arrive sooner. Pack sizes may shrink and promotions may become less lavish. The cauliflower may once again require a moment’s consideration before being dropped into the trolley.

The drought is unlikely to cancel the feast, but it may reveal how much effort goes into making abundance look effortless.

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