UK supermarkets have been hit by vegetable shortages with Morrisons rationing sales of peppers to two items per customer to avoid empty shelves.

The limited supply is believed to be because of poor weather in Spain, which means peppers are growing at a slower rate.

Andrew Opie, Director of Food and Sustainability at the British Retail Consortium said: “Difficult weather conditions in the South of Europe disrupted harvest for some fruit and vegetables including peppers. A few stores have implemented temporary limits on how much customers can buy to ensure availability for everyone. However, availability should improve for those impacted in the coming weeks as we enter UK growing season.”

Commenting on the customer limit, a spokesperson for Morrisons told Express.co.uk that the supermarket is “hoping to lift this in the next week or so” when supply improves.

Other supermarkets such as Waitrose, are also said to be running low on supplies. At the time of writing, Waitrose’s website sold out of red, yellow and orange peppers with only green peppers available to buy online.

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Farmers also warned retailers were not paying enough to grow supplies, further impacting the numbers grown.

Lee Stiles, secretary of the Lea Valley Growers Association (LVGA), told the BBC in February: “The majority of tomatoes, peppers, and aubergines are not going to be around in big volumes until May.”

The LVGA which produces three-quarters of Britain’s cucumbers and peppers said half of its 80 members opted not to plant vegetables over concerns they would make financial losses.

The shortage of tomatoes in UK supermarkets earlier this year widened to other fruit and vegetables due to a combination of bad weather affecting harvests and transport problems in Africa and Europe.

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Also earlier this year, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) warned relying on imports would leave the country vulnerable to “shock weather events”.

Tom Bradshaw, NFU Deputy President spoke to Times Radio in February. He said: “There’s a lack of confidence from the growers that they’re going to get the returns that justify planting their glasshouses. At the moment, we’ve got a lot of glasshouses that would be growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and aubergines sitting empty because growers couldn’t take the risk to plant them with the crops, not thinking they’d get returns from the marketplace.”

Mr Bradshaw also stated soaring energy bills, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine have also put off UK vegetable growers.

He added: “The tragic events in Ukraine have driven inflation, particularly energy inflation to levels that we haven’t seen before.”

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