Empty shelves? Here's what's really going on
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There's something unsettling about a bare supermarket shelf. But a gap where the tomatoes should be almost never means the country has run out of food. It usually means one link in a very long chain has had a hiccup.
Why gaps appear so quickly
British supermarkets run on "just-in-time" deliveries. Stock arrives little and often, rather than sitting in big warehouses. It's efficient and keeps food fresh, but it means a short disruption shows up on the shelves within a day or two. The Government's UK Food Security Report 2024 found no sustained nationwide food shortages between 2021 and 2024, despite a pandemic, a war in Ukraine and plenty of bad weather. It also noted that this low-stock way of working leaves us exposed to short, sharp shocks.
What's happened before
- March 2020: pandemic panic buying cleared pasta, flour and loo roll for a few weeks. Shops set limits and supply soon caught up.
- February 2023: cold snaps and storms in Spain and Morocco hit salad crops. Several big supermarkets limited tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers to two or three per customer for a few weeks.
- Spring 2025: a cyber attack on the Co-op disrupted its stock ordering, and some island and rural stores ran low on fresh food. The food existed. The system for ordering it didn't.
The pattern is reassuring: specific items, specific places, for weeks rather than months.
What to do before
- Keep about three days of food that needs no fridge and no cooking. That's the official baseline. Think tinned fish, beans and fruit, oatcakes, cereal, nut butter, long-life milk, dried fruit.
- Buy food you'd actually eat. Then rotate it: when you buy a new tin, move the old one to the front.
- Build it slowly. One or two extra items a week costs very little and never empties a shelf for anyone else.
- Don't forget a manual tin opener, baby food or formula, pet food, and anything for allergies or special diets.
What to do during
- Shop for the week, not the month. Panic buying is what turns a small gap into a big one.
- Be flexible: swap brands, try the corner shop, the market or the freezer aisle.
- If a recall is behind it, check the Food Standards Agency's alerts and follow them.
- Check on neighbours who can't easily get out. A spare tin of soup goes a long way.
Afterwards
Eat down your stores, restock gradually, and carry on as normal. That's genuinely all there is to it.
Sources
- Defra, United Kingdom Food Security Report 2024: Theme 3, Food Supply Chain Resilience. www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024-theme-3-food-supply-chain-resilience
- GOV.UK Be Ready checklist. beready.campaign.gov.uk/be-ready-for-emergencies
- Reuters, Where are the tomatoes? Britain faces shortage as imports hit, 20 Feb 2023. www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-facing-tomatoes-shortage-after-overseas-harvests-disrupted-2023-02-20
- BBC News, Co-op cyber attack leaves island shop shelves empty, May 2025. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8v821yqm0o
- Cabinet Office, National Risk Register 2025 (food supply contamination). www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-risk-register-2025
- Food Standards Agency. www.food.gov.uk
Last checked 2026-11-01. Facts and figures are linked to their original sources above.