The Rain in Spain is meant to fall mainly on the plain how ever someone forgot to tell the rain that.
Ever since the Brexit vote in June and the devaluation of sterling against the US Dollar and the Euro, we have seen a marked increase in prices of fresh produce. In the early months, with this being close to 20%, the effect on our market was still limited due to the abundance of UK grown produce and the relatively small amount of imports from Mainland Europe.
As we head into the winter months the amount we import from countries such as France, Italy and Spain always increases to the point where we become totally reliant on them for crops such as Aubergine, Courgette, Tomatoes and all our fresh salad lines not to mention of course the obvious citrus lines. By the end of November the effect of the higher prices was already being felt due to Sterling’s relative weakness and the rain in the last two weeks in Southern Spain this is only likely to add to this upward pressure on prices as supply tightens.
Working with our growers in Spain we are doing all we can to keep prices down as much as possible and hoping that the worst of the rain has now left the area.
Who knows, with Christmas just a week away maybe it will snow in Spain!