Shops, restaurants and food factories across the country are facing shortages of a number of key ingredients because of the cost of living crisis, the weather and the war in Ukraine.
Eggs were added to the list of things shoppers in the UK may soon see disappearing from shelves after farmers said the rising cost of production is making them unviable.
The egg industry says shops could start to run out of supply within weeks. British Egg Industry Council chairman Andrew Joret said: “The tidal wave of cost increases will see many family farms, some of which have been producing eggs for generations, going under in a matter of days, unless something is done quickly.”
McDonald's and other fast food outlets have also been struggling to get hold of ingredients.
Last week a McDonald’s spokesperson said: “We are currently experiencing a shortage in our supply of tomatoes. As a result, the Big Tasty and the Big Tasty with Bacon are being served with one slice of tomato rather than two.
"We apologise for any inconvenience, and thank our customers for their patience."
Salad shortages are being created as farmers can no longer afford to heat the greenhouses used for growing in the UK.
The newest shortages come of the back of major outlets including Subway and Nandos last year issuing alerts when supplies ran short after Brexit and a crisis in global supply chains.
Consumer champion Which? has warned of potential shortages in a number of key ingredients, they said: "While there are some residual issues in the food chain relating to Covid and Brexit, such as availability of HGV drivers, what’s happening in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia will have an increasing effect on availability of some foods.
"For example, around 30% of the world’s wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia. While the UK grows most of its wheat and our imports come mainly from France, Germany and Canada, the scarcity of global wheat will lead to prices increasing. This will affect the cost of bread, pasta and many breakfast cereals.
"Corn (maize) is another staple widely grown in Ukraine and Russia. Both wheat and corn are used in animal feed in the UK so shortages and price rises of these are likely to have a knock-on effect on the cost of meat, dairy and eggs."
Some food products labelled as containing sunflower oil may instead contain refined rapeseed oil as the war in Ukraine affects supplies, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) said.
And there are warning shops will soon run out of the cooking oil.
Some manufacturers have had to urgently replace sunflower with refined rapeseed oil before being able to make the change on the label, the agencies said.
British Retail Consortium deputy director of food Andrea Martinez-Inchausti said: “The war in Ukraine has disrupted supplies of sunflower oil to the UK. Where sunflower oil exists as an ingredient in products, retailers will be substituting it with other safe oils, such as rapeseed oil.
“Retailers are looking to change product labels as soon as possible; where sunflower oil is a key ingredient, such as crisps, retailers will imprint information on substitute oil onto existing labels.
“Retailers’ customer services will be answering questions on all their own brand products.”
There will also be pressures on farmers as fertiliser usually sourced from Ukraine and Russia, is now hard to come by and higher gas prices are hitting the supply of carbon dioxide - used widely in food production.
