Worker Heat Stress Puts £18bn Of Mediterranean Food Imports At Growing Risk

Extreme heat affecting agricultural workers across the Mediterranean is creating a growing threat to the UK’s fresh produce supply, according to new analysis reported by The Grocer.

Research by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) found that the 22 Mediterranean countries examined supplied £18.1bn of food to the UK in 2025. This represented 26.8% of the value and 25.1% of the weight of all UK food imports.

Across those countries, agricultural workers lost an estimated 2.8 billion potential working hours to heat stress during 2025.

The figure is based on modelled potential working hours affected by climatic heat exposure rather than recorded absences from individual farms. However, the analysis indicates that the average loss reached almost 137 hours per agricultural worker, more than double the figure of just over 66 hours in 1990.

The regional average reached a record 165 hours per worker in 2024 before falling to 137 hours in 2025. Despite that annual reduction, the ECIU said the underlying long-term trend continued to rise, increasing by an average of around two hours per worker each year since 1990.

The implications are particularly significant for fresh produce. According to the analysis, Mediterranean countries supplied 42% of the UK’s top 20 most frequently purchased fruits and vegetables in 2025, with import dependence reaching its highest levels during February and March.

Spain accounted for around half the value of those Mediterranean fruit and vegetable imports. Spain, Morocco and France together supplied just over 80%.

Exposure varied substantially between supplying countries. The estimated number of potential working hours lost per agricultural worker in 2025 ranged from 28 in France to 254 in Egypt. Spain recorded 73 hours, compared with 56 hours a decade earlier, while the figure for Greece increased from 67 to 89 hours. Morocco recorded an estimated 98 hours.

Across all the Mediterranean suppliers included in the fruit and vegetable analysis, the average was approximately 92 potential working hours lost per agricultural worker.

The risk extends to protected horticulture. In southern Spain, particularly around Almería, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are widely grown beneath plastic. While these structures can shield crops from some external conditions, the ECIU noted that they do not necessarily protect workers from extreme heat and can become considerably hotter than outside when ventilation is poor.

Fresh fruit and vegetables accounted for 13% and 10% respectively of the value of UK food imports from the Mediterranean. Products highlighted in the analysis included citrus fruit, apples, pears, sweet peppers, tomatoes, lettuce and avocados.

The ECIU also found that the UK paid 13% more for Mediterranean food imports in 2025 than in 2022, while the volume imported increased by only 1%. The average price per kilogram rose by 12% over the same period, although the analysis did not attribute all of that increase solely to worker heat stress.

Chris Jaccarini, senior economist for food and climate at the ECIU, said: “We’ve become used to talking about the impact of climate change on crops, but food production depends on people too.”

The findings underline an additional supply-chain vulnerability for a country that imports approximately 86% of its fruit and 44% of its vegetables. Alongside the direct effects of drought, heatwaves, wildfires and water scarcity on crops, increasingly dangerous conditions for the people responsible for planting, tending and harvesting produce could constrain availability and add further pressure to costs.