Market traders are being forced to hike fruit and veg prices due to shortages and surging costs.

The salad crisis hitting supermarkets has seen shoppers increasingly turn to stall holders and greengrocers for cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and lettuces.

But businesses claim huge wholesale costs means they either have to charge high prices or take a tiny profit.

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In some cases, they have quadrupled the price of staple grub.

Bridget Eveleigh, who runs market stalls in Dorset, said: “The last three weeks we have been paying phenomenal prices.

“Tomatoes we are paying £24 a box, normally it’s half that.

“It’s not just tomatoes – icebergs, celery, cucumbers. Red peppers today we paid £26 a box and there’s only 14 in a box.”

Lettuces are changing hands for upwards of £2.

A trader in Brixton, south London, said: “I make no profit now. For certain items, I only get from the customer what I’ve just paid.”

Supermarkets across the country have been left with bare shelves due to a lack of veggies.

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  Brits urged to buy turnips instead of tomatoes to cope with supermarket veg shortage

And environment secretary Therese Coffey last week suggested turnips would be a suitable alternative to low-stock salad favourites, hit by bad weather playing havoc with harvests in Spain and Morocco.

Last week the Daily Star reported that superstores are introducing rationing to protect supplies of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.

And potatoes look set to be the next item disappearing from the shelves with UK farmers unable to meet demand and supplies of crops from abroad dwindling.

Last year’s drought, a labour shortage and soaring energy bills have combined to make growing spuds una-peel-ing.

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