The Red Sea carries around 12 per cent of all global trade, but it’s at risk due to Houthi attacks. Sophie Morris asks food security expert Professor Chris Elliott how this could affect our shopping habits
Professor Chris Elliott predicts citrus, grapes and kiwi fruit might rise in price
As professor of food safety at Queen’s University Belfast and an expert on global food security, Chris Elliott has been keeping a close eye on the ongoing Red Sea crisis and the actions of the Iran-backed Houthi rebel groups from Yemen.
Following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October, and the killing of thousands of Palestinians by Israel, the Houthi say they are attacking and hijacking ships which are Israeli-owned or are heading to Israeli ports. This is happening in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea (and Suez Canal) to the Indian Ocean.
Although the region is almost 6,000km from the UK, the Houthis are having an effect because the Red Sea is one of the world’s most important trading routes, said to carry around 12 per cent of all global trade. This means any chaos there will affect food on its way to the UK, and the price of that food once it hits shelves – if it’s still edible by the time it gets here.
“It’s been a tinderbox for a number of years. When you look at the vested interests, whether the US and the UK, or Iran and Iraq, you can see that the lid was going to lift on it at some stage,” says Professor Elliott. “The global food supply system is unbelievably complicated. We have gone through Brexit, then the Covid pandemic, war in the Ukraine, and now war in the Middle East, which is seeping out to the Suez Canal.”
Elliott says that all of these have different impacts on our food supply, but collectively they present a real threat to the food on our plates. “The world’s food supply system is pretty fragile anyway. There’s a massive increase in population, massive issues about climate change, and now we’re getting all of these geopolitical factors coming on board. It’s increasing the fragility. Every time something happens, it puts more stressors on the system.”
Price hikes
“When you look at the graph,” says Elliott, “food inflation had peaked and was starting to dip down again. But I would say that the dip is probably going to stop, if Suez continues.
“One of the big costs associated with food is transportation, which is increasing because of the escalation in Suez. The costs are still significantly less than they were during the Covid pandemic, but they will steadily increase the longer this lasts for.”
One of the key problems at the moment, explains Elliott, is the availability of shipping. “There’s a finite number of ships,” he points out. “There’s a backlog, and the cost of shipping is soaring and people are paying five or 10 times more for one cargo load. At the moment, it’s more about price increases as opposed to availability.”
Which foods are at risk?
According to Elliott, perishables including citrus fruits and grapes, and all kinds of spices are at risk from both price increases and reduced availability, owing to the increase in shipping time as ships rerouted to avoid the Suez Canal.
“It used to be that most countries would have several months’ supply of foodstuff. That has almost completely disappeared now because of ‘just in time’ delivery. There will be weeks of supply of some of these things. But will there be a month’s supply of oranges or grapes in the UK? Not a chance.”
What about dry goods?
Elliott says that although most of our rice arrives via Suez, he doesn’t see it becoming a big factor. “There will be some increase in price because of the time it takes for dry goods like rice to come here, but I’ve spoken to people in the rice industry and they don’t seem to be overly concerned about it.”
Haven’t we just signed a deal to import loads of New Zealand lamb? How is that getting here? “There’s not going to be a massive amount of meat coming from that part of the world, and it comes frozen. Taking a week longer isn’t going to be a big issue.”
Will certain foods become expensive and a luxury?
“We’ve already seen almost all foods become luxury items,” Elliott points out. “Most of our spices come from south-east Asia and most of our ginger comes from China. The price of ginger is up by 30 per cent already since the first troubles started in Suez.”
“Most of our kiwi fruit comes from New Zealand and Southeast Asia. A week extra for kiwi fruit will be a disaster as it ripens really quickly. You might see kiwi already as a bit of a luxury, and about to become even more of one.”
Should we worry about wine? Elliott offers reassurance that there is plenty to go round, and that most of ours comes from just across the channel.
When you have a shortage, that becomes a driver for fraud. With massive increases in prices, unscrupulous people will start to mix spices with other things. When I talk to industry people, spices are high on their and my radar for shortages, price increases and potential fraud.
Should I rush to bulk buy this weekend?
“How many oranges can you fit in your basket?” Elliott jokes. “If it’s perishable, you can’t really do much about it and for fresh food it’s really hard to work out what you can do to mitigate it.”
“The food industry is unbelievably adaptive and has been learning to deal with shocks, but they come one after another. The biggest shock to the food industry is climate change, and that’s going to get worse and worse and worse. This time last year, when the shelves were empty of fresh produce because of climate change in north Africa, there were no alternative supplies. That’s what we’re going to see more often. It’s not that supermarkets will be empty, but there will be a lot of empty spaces, which we’ve never seen in the past.”
Will we switch to eating more local food?
“Food production in the UK is on the decline. That’s not something where you can just press a button and more food gets produced. There are also issues here with the flooding, and there’s going to be less locally-produced food because of that.”
Is the Government doing what it should?
“Having a food policy would be really quite useful,” says Elliott. “We have a fantastic food industry in the UK, but there isn’t any government intervention or good policies about future food security.”
The main effects of Suez and Ukraine is not UK-centric, says Elliott. “It’s much more about getting grain to parts of the world that are short of foodstuffs, so it will drive hunger and famine, no doubt about that.”