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Food

03rd Feb 2017

Panic Now: There Is A Serious Spinach Shortage Happening

Alice.Murray

This is not a drill. 

I’ve noticed a serious lack of spinach in my local supermarkets, SuperValu and Lidl, since January.

No matter what time of day you pop in, certain veg shelves are looking forlorn without the iron-laden green stuff, expect of course for kale, you can get it in abundance.

Anyway, four weeks on and the spinach shortage is in full swing with shops in the UK starting to ration it.

Drought in Spain have had a negative impact on crops there while Turkey and Greece have also had supplies ruined by poor weather conditions.

Although the situation isn’t that bad here (yet), it’s still next to impossible to get a bag of spinach, in Dublin anyway. Lettuce is still easy enough obtain but then, it’s not quite the same in a green smoothie.

Dieter Lloyd, from the British Leafy Salads Association, spoke to the BBC about the spinach situation and warned that this shortage could continue for another couple of months.

Lloyd explained that Southern Spain is responsible for 80% of the spinach bought by the European Union and although some stock is coming in, a number of countries are vying to buy the coveted healthy greens.

There’s no end in sight yet either with the expert explaining that the salad drought could continue for some time.

“This won’t solve itself this month or next. For this season, their crop has been devastated”.

People are pretty p*ssed off too.