All product-purchase restrictions at Lidl stores will be lifted today, Agriland can confirm.
Lidl was one of a number of UK retailers that introduced temporary limits on the amount of fruits and vegetables customers could buy in the past few weeks.
Other retailers that introduced limits were Asda and Morrisons. Among the products that had purchase limits were tomatoes; cucumbers; lettuce; and peppers.
Asa is also set to remove it remaining limits, on tomatoes and peppers, tomorrow (Tuesday, March 14).
Morrisons has removed its max cap on cucumbers and will lift its restrictions on lettuce tomorrow. Its purchase limit of two items/customer will remain on tomatoes and peppers.
These limits were in response to reduced supply of seasonal products coming from hotter countries that had disruptive harvests due to weather conditions.
As a result of these shortages, retailers have been asked to review their relationships with UK farmers, and how they buy fruits and vegetables.
In other retailer news, the Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) is investigating the supply of meat wrongly labelled as British to Booths.
The pre-packed sliced meat and deli products were sourced from South America and Europe.
Deputy head of NFCU Andrew Quinn said Booths was notified on the same day that the unit took action against the food business it suspects of supplying the products, and immediately removed all affected products from its shelves.
Booths has confirmed that all relevant products were removed from sale, and trading with the supplier ceased with immediate effect when the retailer was made aware of the potential issues in 2021.
Quinn added that Booths “continues to work closely and cooperatively with the NFCU investigation to progress the case against the supplier”.
This is a matter of food fraud as opposed to food safety, he said.
