How the Wettest Year in Decades Could Change Your Weekly Shop

It has rained almost every day across the UK. Honestly, I can only remember 1 day this year that hasn’t meant grey skies and muddy shoes. For farmers, it has meant something far more serious: lost soil, lost crops, and mounting financial pressure that will inevitably shape our weekly shop.

Jack Feeny of Birch Farm & Tomorrow’s Kitchen told me: “It’s been so wet that we’ve seen a huge amount of topsoil run off. When there are no crops in the ground and no deep root systems, the soil has no structure or capacity to hold water. When all of this health holding part of the soil is gone, you’re left with just dirt. It’s also almost time to start sowing spring wheat but farmers will struggle to get tractors into fields without churning it up completely and causing a lot of compaction - there’s also a high risk of rot. That’s a huge amount of money lost and it will mean shortages and price increases in the months ahead”.

That loss of topsoil isn’t a small detail; topsoil is where nutrients live. It is the result of years (sometimes decades) of careful stewardship, composting, cover cropping and root growth. When relentless rain washes that layer away, it strips fields of their fertility. What remains is compacted dirt that struggles to absorb water and support life.

Without established plants and their deep root systems, there is no natural water-holding capacity. So each downpour runs off faster, taking more soil with it and leaving behind compacted ground. Compaction then makes it even harder for farmers to plant the next crop. Seeds sit in cold, waterlogged soil and rot before they can germinate. Spring wheat, the backbone of many everyday foods from bread to pasta, has been particularly vulnerable this year.

If yields are lower and fields go unplanted, we obviously won’t be growing as much food – and so if demand remains steady, prices rise. Over the next few months, we are likely to see less availability of certain grains and vegetables and increasing prices. This shows that when weather shocks disrupt our food system, it exposes how finely balanced it really is.

As someone who believes good food should be accessible to all, I also think we need to understand its true cost. If weeks of relentless rain can undo months of work in a matter of days, then the price tag on a bag of flour or a loaf of bread can quickly look very different; and behind the price is a much bigger story than we sometimes realise.

So what does this mean for your weekly shop? Expect some prices to creep up, certain products to be less available and more imported food on our shelves. Perhaps most importantly, expect to rethink value.

This is the moment to cook with intention: use whole ingredients, batch cook food in your fridge that might go to waste and freeze it, and to support local growers where possible. If you have small shops near you that sell local produce, go have a chat with them – they’ll often have a great view on what is abundant and what is tricky to source (which can help you get the best value products as our seasons shift). As our climate continues to change, our buying habits should too.