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Kate Plummer
Feb 24, 2023
Work more hours if you can’t afford food, Therese Coffey suggests
content.jwplatform.com
Therese Coffey has piped up with a useful solution for the supermarket food shortages - eating turnips.
The Defra secretary told MPs that the UK should “cherish the specialisms”, amid produce shortages adding: “A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar, but I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world try to satisfy.”
It comes after a shortage of tomatoes in UK supermarkets has widened to other fruit and vegetables due to a combination of bad weather and transport problems in Africa and Europe, the increased costs of production due to the war in Ukraine, and labour shortages caused by Brexit.
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Four supermarkets, Tesco, Aldi, Asda and Morrisons have implemented product rationing in response.
Coffey may have been trying to help, but people thought her intervention was a bit silly:
\u201c\u201cLet them eat turnips\u201d! #TomatoShortages\u201d— Ben Bradshaw (@Ben Bradshaw) 1677162075
\u201c@JasonGroves1 To be fair, we *did* see it on the side of Boris' Brexit Bus.\u201d— Jason Groves (@Jason Groves) 1677154926
\u201chave to be honest I did not enjoy this afternoon's cheese and turnip sandwich, 3/10 avoid\u201d— Alan White (@Alan White) 1677163661
\u201cDid anyone get "cherish a turnip" in Brexit Bingo?\n\nhttps://t.co/K46p1VTnsH\u201d— Sathnam Sanghera (@Sathnam Sanghera) 1677161934
\u201cAnother day of those sunlit uplands we were promised\u2026.\u201d— Anna Turley \ud83c\udf39\ud83d\udc1d\ud83d\udc99\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Anna Turley \ud83c\udf39\ud83d\udc1d\ud83d\udc99\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1677175321
\u201c"We asked 100 people to name something you use as a pizza topping. \nYou said Turnips..."\u201d— Jon de Plume (@Jon de Plume) 1677173061
\u201cjust having a nice fried turnip with a full English\u201d— Toby Earle \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Toby Earle \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1677225983
\u201cEveryone enjoying their Brexit breakfast turnips?\u201d— Caitlin Moran (@Caitlin Moran) 1677225429
\u201cBrexiters guzzling their turnip smoothies to "own the Remainers"\u201d— NewsThump (@NewsThump) 1677232762
\u201cBrexit: Work longer hours and eat turnips.\n\nI can see why that wasn\u2019t on the side of a bus.\u201d— Dr Mike Galsworthy (@Dr Mike Galsworthy) 1677181444
\u201cSo under \u2018benefits of Brexit\u201d you\u2019ve just put \u201c\u2026 turnips\u201d\u201d— Robin Flavell (@Robin Flavell) 1677186716
\u201c"Lettuce hope we can get a job after the next election."\n\n"Don't worry, I'm sure something will turnip."\u201d— Keith Burge (@Keith Burge) 1677174992
\u201cThin crust Turnip Passion\u2122\ufe0f tonight\u201d— mnrrntt (@mnrrntt) 1677232048
But she didn't stop there. Coffey was also criticised yesterday for suggesting people struggling with bills should work more hours and she struggled to get a sentence out when MPs criticised her over the shortages.
Turnip on toast anyone?
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