Why empty produce shelves in rich Western Europe are a good thing

From our Yo, cultural differences are real series.

This post would probably not have been written without the odd Twitter user claiming that Russian TV showing empty grocery store shelves in Europe was bare faced Soviet style propaganda. The choice of photo is sensationalist but very much like the UK Daily Mirror or German BILD on a good day.

The story is a bit more complicated.

The blogster does recall a trip to a German supermarket one Saturday shortly after arrival in the country and nearly bare produce shelves at the store.

Coming from the land of plenty, where apples still get polished and stacked up in pyramids, at least in some stores, a brief bout of veggie anxiety is quite natural in the face of empty crates and boxes. To make it worse, this was in the middle of summer, the height of fruit and vegetable season.

Soon, it* figured out what was going on, a pattern emerged.

At another grocery store, Saturday afternoon, starting at 5 pm, turned out to be discount time. A store clerk with a price gun began marking down produce with swift ticks while expertly dodging the Turkish ladies and the blogster angling for the marked down items.
What does not get sold is then picked up by local food bank volunteers.

After more night time and Saturday evening shopping trips as well as reading ample newspaper reports on food waste in Germany, the cultural and economic process became clear.

German grocery stores simply do not stock the wasteful amounts of fresh vegetables and fruit that our common US markets hoard. German markets will start moving the produce out of the store area into the cold storage in the back an hour or so prior to closing.

Whether that is due to stricter overtime rules or a lack of relentless American style customer service is not quite resolved, but it doesn't make a difference to the blogster.

The point is, you get used to it quickly. The shelves are stocked again the next morning, and any veggie anxiety will subside.

The current wave of empty shelves in many EU countries has been caused by poor growing conditions in the Mediterranean countries that produce most of northern Europe's vegetables and fruit. British supermarkets have been rationing lettuce and broccoli, prices have shot up.

More generally, you might want to stay away from "fresh" fruit or vegetables in winter in Britain or Ireland, even when there is no adverse weather in Italy or Spain. Unless you can shop at Harrod's, a "tomato" in a UK winter is a pinkish bag of water, a banana is green and about as soft as nunchuks. The flavor probably matches nunchuks, too, but the blogster was not crazy enough to bite into nunchuks.

For those who suspect a fruit and veg conspiracy in southern Europe, the blogster can reassure you: it is totally real, sort of.

The very ripest fruit and veggies stay in Spain or Italy for local consumption because the transportation time and logistics chain require most produce to be shipped north long before it develops its best taste and flavor.

* The blogster goes gender neutral, just because, and more recently specifically to tick of US republicans.