Shoppers across the city are being faced with empty or shuttered cold food shelves as the UK’s cooling infrastructure buckles under extreme temperatures across June and July.
Supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, M&S and Waitrose have reported bare chiller and freezer sections as refrigeration systems designed for milder conditions struggle to cope with 37°C-plus heat.
The disruption comes weeks after the Cold Chain Federation warned that Britain’s temperature-controlled network, which supports nearly half of UK food and drink production, worth around £50bn, remains unrecognised as critical national infrastructure in government planning.
Trade bodies have since urged ministers to treat cold-chain resilience as an immediate national priority, warning that without it, food access, affordability and safety are all at risk during future periods of intense heatwaves.
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Featured image credit: Dominik via Unsplash
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