Cucumber crisis: Surging energy prices leave greenhouses empty

Added on 02 April 2022

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Cucumber crisis: Surging energy prices leave greenhouses empty

UK- In a small corner of southeast England, vast glasshouses stand empty, the soaring cost of energy preventing their owner from using heat to grow cucumbers for the British market.

Elsewhere in the country growers have also failed to plant peppers, aubergines and tomatoes after a surge in natural gas prices late last year was exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, making the crops economically unviable.

The hit to UK farms, which need gas to counter the country's inclement weather, is one of the myriad ways the energy crisis and invasion have hit food supplies around the world, with global grain production and edible oils also under threat.

"There's definitely going to be a lack of British produce in the supermarkets."

Lee Stiles

National Farmers Union

In Britain, it is likely to push food prices higher at a time of historic inflation, and threaten the availability of goods such as the quintessentially British cucumber sandwich served at the Wimbledon tennis tournament and big London hotels.

While last year it cost about 25 pence to produce a cucumber in Britain, that has now doubled and is set to hit 70 pence when higher energy prices fully kick in, trade body British Growers says.

Regular sized cucumbers were selling for as little as 43 pence at Britain's biggest supermarket chains on Tuesday.

"Gas prices being so sky-high, it's a worrying time," grower Tony Montalbano told Reuters while standing in an empty glasshouse at Roydon in the Lea Valley where for 54 years three generations of his family have farmed cucumbers.

"All the years of us working hard to get to where we are, and then one year it could just all finish," he said.

All 30,000 square metres of glasshouse at his Green Acre Salads business, which supplies supermarket groups including market leader Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons, are currently empty.

Montalbano, whose grandfather emigrated from Sicily in 1968 and started a nursery to provide local stores with fresh cucumbers, decided not to plant the first of the year's three cycles in January.

Soaring costs

Last year he paid 40-50 pence a therm for natural gas. Last week it was Ł2.25 (2.66) a therm, having briefly hit a record Ł8 (9.47) in the wake of Russia's invasion.

Fertiliser prices have tripled versus last year, while the cost of carbon dioxide - used both to aid growth and in packaging - and hard-to-attain labour have also shot up.

"We are now in an unprecedented situation where the cost increases have far outstripped a grower's ability to do anything about them," said Jack Ward, head of British Growers.

It means a massive contraction for the industry, threatening Britain's future food security, and further price rises for UK consumers already facing a bigger inflation hit than other countries in Europe following Brexit.