Salads – especially cucumbers – took a bashing during the E.coli crisis. But prices at retail have actually remained relatively stable. Julia Glotz reports


Salads have had a torrid time recently.

After European authorities implicated healthy staples such as lettuce and cucumbers in the deadly E.coli outbreak in Germany just as the summer ­salad season was about to kick off many UK suppliers saw prices ­collapse.

Wholesale prices for cucumbers, for example, were reported by some UK suppliers to have fallen by as much as 30% immediately after the German authorities pointed the finger at Spanish cucumbers an accusation that soon turned out to be false.

At retail, however, prices for most fresh salads and vegetables have remained largely stable. Although prices have been soaring in many food categories, much healthy fare is being sold at the same or in some cases lower prices than it was a year ago.

Fresh salad prices dipped somewhat in May a basket of 300 fresh salad products moved from an ­average price of £1.21 per item at the end of April to £1.16 in mid-May [BrandView.co.uk]. But they recovered quickly and had returned to 2010 levels at the beginning of June, when the fallout of the E.coli crisis really started to hit.

Take iceberg lettuce, for example. Most of the big four were selling this for 85p a pop last year, but it is now going for 50p in Tesco and 79p in Morrisons, with Asda keeping it at 85p. Only Sainsbury’s has raised its price, by 15p to £1 a lettuce.

Elsewhere in the salad aisle, ­prices have also remained largely the same. Twin packs of Romaine lettuce hearts have slipped, moving just 1p from an ­average of £1.33 to £1.32, while 200g bags of crispy salad from Florette continue to be sold for about £1.74 in most of the multiples exactly the same as this time last year.

It’s a similar story for cucumbers, the salad vegetable that was perhaps most tarred by the German E.coli disaster. Most of the mults are selling one whole cucumber for 80p at the moment, which is largely in line with last year’s prices.

Broccoli prices have also remained stable, at around the £1.97/kg mark, while loose carrots are down to 70p in all of the big four, compared with an average of 77p a year ago.

Red peppers, too, are cheaper now in many retailers than a year ago, with Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons selling at 80p typically 2p less than last year while Asda is currently selling at 72p.

Most salad suppliers will have breathed a sigh of relief when the focus of the E.coli investigations recently moved from salad vegetables to imported fenugreek seeds. Considerable damage has already been done: the FPC estimates the UK produce industry lost £54m on cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce sales alone following the E.coli ­outbreak in Germany, and the long-term effect on sales is yet to be seen.

However, at a time when shoppers are increasingly watching their budgets, suppliers can take some solace from the knowledge that as prices are soaring elsewhere, the fresh salad aisles continue to offer cash-strapped shoppers some of the more stable prices around.

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