Climate Emergency Could End London’s Inexplicable Fondness for Sweet Potato Fries

A world without sweet potato fries is a better world

First, extreme weather came for the cauliflower, the most famous of the roasted brassicas. Now, extreme weather and Brexit have combined to leave U.K. supermarkets in the grip of a ruinous sweet potato shortage, according to I News. The vivid orange tuber has suffered after heavy rains and hurricanes, with the Produce Alliance in the U.S. telling I News: “The market continues to be tight after many growers were affected by Hurricane Florence in North Carolina last September.”

“Increasing demand and heavy rains in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama also created challenges.”

This isn’t being helped by the pound’s irrepressible decline in the face of Brexit, rising import costs in an already squeezed market. What both inexorable global forces could do, however, is create conditions in which London is freed from the beta-carotene-hued scourge of sweet potato fries. [I News]

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