nsurprisingly, given the extremes of weather growers have had to contend with just to get their crops to store, the vegetable category in the UK has grown in value year on year.

According to the latest Kantar Worldpanel data, the market experienced 7.4 per cent growth in value to be worth £5.1 billion, with one per cent growth in volume in the 12-month period to 17 February.

Kantar analyst Avneet Chana points to most growth coming from shoppers increasing their purchase frequency on vegetables as well, of course, as significant increases in prices. Nevertheless, shoppers have been putting less in their trolleys at each trip it seems.

One industry insider said: “I am not really sure about the psychology of it, but maybe shoppers are buying smaller volumes more regularly. Maybe it is a response to the ongoing catalogue of perverse weather we have had which has led to price inflation in the past 12 months. In any case the retailers are responding to it and have been targeting their deals accordingly.”

Rather than one large shopping trip a week, a core of the market are shopping in smaller amounts for regular meal solutions. “Shoppers can be more prudent if they are shopping in smaller amounts and the deals the retailers have come up with reflect this, such as ‘any-two-fors’ and ‘any-three-fors’,” said the insider. “For the shopper there is less wastage, but for the supply chain, availability becomes more important and instead of Thursday to Saturday being the big shopping days, there needs to be good availability earlier in the week too.”

The price inflation has come about not just as a reflection of the difficulty in getting UK produce onto the shelves, but also because there has been a greater reliance on imports – for example of cauliflower from France and Spain – to plug the gaps which have subsequently led to higher prices.

Looking ahead to the next quarter, the wintry spell that has gripped the UK for the past week will have an effect on availability. There has been very little planting of brassicas such as cauliflower or broccoli because of the conditions. One agronomist told FPJ: “The new season is running two to three weeks late already as planting has not been able to start yet. And on winter cauliflower from Lincolnshire, which would normally come on stream in early March, we will be over a month late. What this means is that we will probably see eight to nine weeks worth of production concentrated into five to six weeks so we will have a glut of availability.” There is also the issue of quality as the cold weather conditions have hindered leaf growth.

Root crops are facing challenges too. Harvesting of carrots under straw has been progressing well, but with the prevailing conditions, growers have not been able to drill crops for the 2013-14 campaign. All of this means that growers are facing their third season of dramatic weather on the back of the very cold winter of 2010-11, and then the drought of 2012 that turned into the wettest summer on record. While the temptation might be for growers to turn to energy crops or wheat, the wet autumn stopped many doing so.

And it is not just in the UK that producers have been having a tough time. The Spanish have suffered with some trying times in terms of the weather that have led to some difficulties for broccoli growers, although category managers have managed to limit the trauma in the supply chain. And plantings of pointed cabbage in Spain have been down this year as growers have not wanted to take the risk of earning only a small return on their product based on recent experience.

Looking at the retail picture, it is the discounters that have enjoyed the fastest growth rates on vegetables this year, and values have climbed for this sector by 22.9 per cent, with Aldi once again leading the charge. Of the big four, it is only Asda that undertrades in the category, while Sainsbury’s overtrade is ahead of that of near market rivals Tesco and Morrisons. —