Bad news for people who buy food at Woolworths

Woolworths has reported shortages of some of its food items in South Africa, including fresh produce and meat, at some of its stores.

“We are aware of temporary shortages that impacted the supply of fresh produce and meat to some Woolies stores, particularly in Gauteng,” the retailer told Daily Investor.

“Heavy rainfall in Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal has had an impact on some of our fresh produce and affected the supply of lettuce, spinach, and cauliflower, among other items.”

“Our teams are working hard to source produce from alternative regions, and we hope to see this corrected over the next week.”

Woolworths added that a supplier-related issue affected its red meat product levels. “Our supplier resolved this on Friday, and supply will return to normal shortly,” it said.

“There is, however, more stock of poultry, duck, venison, fish, and prepared meals at Woolies stores to make up for this gap in availability – we hope this will give our customers suitable alternatives in the meantime.”

Severe rains have affected a number of farms in South Africa recently, with some farmlands even being underwater.

Even in cases where farmers are still able to harvest produce, they can’t necessarily get it to market, since key roads and bridges have been washed away – making it difficult for farmers to even access their own fields.

“We have been delayed by quite a couple of weeks, and also, we’ve been struggling to get into the orchards and spray for pests and diseases as we normally do during this time,” Juan Winter, agricultural consultant at Agri Africa, told CGTV Africa.

Although he said that actual losses in trees and crops are not as severe as they initially thought, the losses resulting from putting goods on the market much later than usual “could be quite significant.”

Unfortunately, climatologist Jasper Knight explained to CGTV Africa that human-induced climate change significantly increases the likelihood of extreme weather events like floods and droughts.

This means that disruptions in food supply from major grocers like Woolworths could become more frequent in the future.

Earlier this year, Woolworths also reported a shortage of avocados in its stores. The retailer explained that the shortage was predominantly due to shifting harvesting times in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region.

Their Eastern Cape farmers also saw lower volumes this year, and unexpected logistical delays affected avocados originating from Tanzania.

“Ensuring fresh produce is readily available for our customers is a top priority, and we continuously monitor the macro-environment when predicting and planning the supply of seasonal fruit and vegetables.”

“Our food teams plan for January months to be challenging for avocado supply historically. Various measures are implemented to address this, including supplementing our avocado stock from additional suppliers.”

“For instance, in January, we sourced avocados from Tanzania to mitigate the shortage from local farmers.”

Woolworths added that avocado trees tend to adopt alternate bearing cycles which can see less fruit harvested during “off years”, such as the one their Eastern Cape farmer was experiencing.

Fortunately, new season harvests from farmers in Mozambique and Limpopo helped ease avocado supply constraints.

“Woolworths is passionate about meeting our customer’s high expectations, and we will not sell products that do not meet our strict quality standards.”

Unfortunately for consumers, low product supply, as well as delayed local harvests, disruptions in imports, and increasing global demand, have caused avocado prices to skyrocket in the last few years.

“There’s always going to be an issue around prices. But prices are heavily dependent on the issues of supply and demand across the world,” agricultural economist Thabile Nkunjana explained on the Kaya Biz podcast.