Shoppers have spotted fake carrots in Fakenham, cardboard asparagus in London, pictures of oranges and grapes in Milton Keynes, and 2D washing liquid bottles in Cambridge. Sainsbury’s has also used outline drawings of packaging to fill shelves.

The tactic comes as shortages of HGV drivers and pickers and packers on farms and food processing plants lead to low availability of some items in supermarkets. Problems at ports, where handlers are struggling to cope with a surge in deliveries for the festive season, are also leading to shortages.

Bryan Roberts, a retail analyst at Shopfloor Insights, said he had only begun to see the cardboard cutouts of fresh produce in the past year, but said similar tactics had been in place elsewhere in supermarkets for some time. “It has become quite commonplace. It is not only because of shortages, but because a lot of the larger stores are now simply too big.”

He said the cutouts were one of an array of tactics being used to fill space, including filling meat fridges with bottles of tomato sauce or mayonnaise, spreading packs of beer out across whole aisles, and erecting large posters or other marketing material.

Tesco, which has boasted that its sales have been boosted by its ability to keep shelves stocked, said the fruit and vegetable pictures were not linked to the recent supply chain issues and had been in use for many months.

Traditional supermarkets, which can stock more than 40,000 product lines, have been honing their grocery ranges to improve efficiency so they can cut prices and compete more effectively with discounters such as Aldi and Lidl, which sell fewer than 3,000 different products.

That process has only been accelerated by Brexit and the pandemic which have led to staff shortages and difficulties in shipping goods. Supermarkets and manufacturers have reduced the range of different types of pasta, coffee or teas they sell to make it easier to keep goods flowing.

An independent review of UK food policy is calling for “a gold standard level of scrutiny” to ensure new trade deals do not undermine the environment.

Verification schemes should address concerns such as imports of beef reared on land recently cleared of rainforest.

And the government should press on with plans to pay English farmers to improve the countryside.

The report aims to ensure a food system that is healthy, affordable, sustainable, resilient, and productive.

It was commissioned by the government in 2019.

Author of the first report of the National Food Strategy, food entrepreneur Henry Dimbleby, said the UK had a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to decide what kind of trading nation it wanted to be when the transition period ends.

“We should use that freedom to decide that we want to uphold standards,” he said.

“And the government should be confident of scrutiny on the trade deals that it is doing.”

Trade deals should not only increase wealth but restore the environment and protect animal welfare, he added.

A disorderly break with the European Union at the end of the year poses a bigger threat to Britain’s food supplies than the coronavirus pandemic that saw supermarket shelves emptied, a Parliamentary committee warned.

In a report published on Thursday, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee called on Boris Johnson’s government to complete an urgent review of the food industry’s resilience to shocks like Brexit and climate change. The panel singled out the importation of produce from overseas on a just-in-time basis as a particular concern.

“The government cannot afford to be complacent,” the report said. “It should provide reassurances that food supply disruptions have been factored into contingency planning for the end of the transition period.”

The U.K. organization for farmers, landowners and businesses in rural England and Wales has said labor shortages caused by coronavirus could be devastating for this years’ harvest. They are calling for a ‘land army’ of local labour to be recruited to assist the sector, which expects to see its labour supply cut by 75% as EU workers who normally come to the U.K. to work for the harvest season are prevented from coming.

The U.K. agriculture sector was already in trouble, heavily reliant on EU workers as it is. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, when the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, labour supply from the mainland has been dwindling, and the government’s recent immigration stance emphasizing high-skilled migration has provided little comfort.

Now, thanks to coronavirus, we are seeing what happens when borders are totally closed to foreign workers, at least for one sector. According to the CLA, the agriculture sector usually uses around 60,000 seasonal laborers per year to complete the harvest, and they expect only around 25% of that amount this year. Factor in a 20% coronavirus infection rate the CLA is reckoning with, and they estimate some 80,000 people will need to be mobilized to protect Britain’s harvest.

Tim Lang likes to take the long view. A conversation with the internationally renowned professor of food policy at London’s City University will roam in detail from the repeal of the Corn Laws, through Brexit and back again, the narrative seasoned with detailed facts and figures. It’s why he has been a consultant to the World Health Organisation, special adviser to four House of Commons select committee inquiries and a food policy adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. So when he says in his new book, Feeding Britain, that, “although not officially at war, the UK is, de facto, facing a wartime scale of food challenge”, it’s worth paying attention. We are, he says, in serious trouble.   

Lang, who established the pioneering Centre for Food Policy at City University in 1994, makes no apologies for the bluntness of the statement. “I did not write that lightly,” he says, when we meet in central London. “I sat in my study, reviewing all the data. Things have just got worse.” Even so, he recognises how it looks. Panic buying aside, our supermarket shelves are usually full. We have access to a greater range of ingredients at better prices than at any time in human history. The conversation around how and what we eat often feels like it sits front and centre of the culture. “I like my food,” he says. “More joy around food has come into our lives.”

And yet, he says, all of that masks a bitter reality: we have a massively fragile just-in-time supply chain which could easily collapse; a depleted agriculture sector which produces only around 50% of the food we actually eat, leaving us at the mercies of the international markets; and production methods which are damaging to the environment and human health. “When I looked at the numbers on inequality,” he says, “I was shocked. There’s a staggering gap between rich and poor in terms of wealth and income and therefore access to food.” As he says: “Food is the biggest driver of NHS spending as a result of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.” Food may look cheap, he adds, but too much of it creates vast, unsustainable costs elsewhere.

Food delivery company Ocado has said its decision to order 100,000 Covid-19 testing kits for staff would help keep grocery supplies flowing and protect both staff and the public – but has promised to hand them over to the NHS if required.

The firm said it wanted all its staff to be tested regularly to ensure customers who cannot visit the shops because they are observing lockdown protocols can receive deliveries safely.

It has paid £1.5m for the testing kits, with 40,000 already delivered and a further 60,000 to come. Ocado refused to state from which company it had bought the tests.

While Ocado has managed to source testing kits for staff contributing to the food supply effort, nurses and doctors have been left waiting.