The shelf was ridiculed by the public due to delivery issues and shifting to fewer product lines

Last modified on Friday, October 22, 2021, 13.25 EDT

Supermarkets are using cardboard cutouts of fruits, vegetables, and other groceries to fill in the gaps on the shelves, as supply issues and the shift to smaller product ranges mean that many stores are now too big.

Tesco has started using pictures of asparagus, carrots, oranges and grapes on its fresh produce shelves, which has caused ridicule on social media.

"Well, a delicious picture of asparagus," one commenter wrote on Twitter. Another person laughed at a photo of an oversized vegetable stack: "I like that asparagus grows to this size in the UK. This is our climate, I'm sure."

Tesco has fake asparagus this morning pic.twitter.com/QokEJGs81W

Shoppers found fake carrots in Fakenham, cardboard asparagus in London, pictures of oranges and grapes in Milton Keynes, and 2D detergent bottles in Cambridge. Sainsbury's also uses packaging outlines to fill the shelves.

When this strategy was introduced, there was a shortage of heavy truck drivers, pickers and packers in farms and food processing plants, resulting in insufficient supply of certain commodities in supermarkets. The port’s problems have also led to a shortage of goods, and port handlers are struggling to cope with the surge in deliveries during the holiday season.

Bryan Roberts, a retail analyst at Shopfloor Insights, said he had only seen cardboard cuts for fresh produce in the past year, but said that similar strategies have been implemented elsewhere in the supermarket for some time. "This has become very common. This is not only because of shortages, but also because many of the larger stores are now too big."

He said that paper cutting is one of a series of strategies used to fill the space, including filling the meat refrigerator with bottled ketchup or mayonnaise, spreading a pack of beer throughout the aisle, and erecting large posters or other marketing materials.

Tesco has always boasted that its shelf inventory has increased sales, but said that these fruit and vegetable pictures have nothing to do with recent supply chain issues and have been used for several months.

Traditional supermarkets with more than 40,000 product lines have been honing their grocery range to increase efficiency in order to lower prices and compete more effectively with discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl, which sell less than 3,000 different products.

Brexit and the pandemic have caused shortages of personnel and difficulties in transporting goods, but have only accelerated the process. Supermarkets and manufacturers have reduced the different types of pasta, coffee or tea they sell to make it easier to maintain circulation.

Due to the shortage of drivers, some bulky and low-profit items, such as bottled carbonated drinks and water, have also been pushed to the bottom of the delivery priority list, which means that the gaps on the shelves may be larger than usual.

Several chain stores, including Sainsbury's, Asda and Tesco, have also closed food service counters to reduce costs and leave more space to fill.

At the same time, the rise of online shopping has caused many supermarkets to no longer store non-food items such as TVs, CDs or kettles as before, leaving many blank areas that cannot be filled with alternative products. Some people introduced other services, such as opticians, key cutting or dry cleaners, to take up space.

In terms of fresh produce, stores such as Tesco also have the goal of reducing food waste, so stocks are tighter than in the past.

Cardboard cutouts of expensive items (such as detergents, protein powder, and spirits such as gin) are sometimes used to prevent shoplifting. Pictures of the product are placed on the shelf to indicate availability, and shoppers must pick up the actual product at the checkout counter.