Interesting Facts

The number of coffee shops in the UK surpassed 20,000 in 2015, boosting sales by 10pc to £7.9bn.  (Unfortunately this soaring demand means there will be a problem; supply won't be able to keep up, and market experts are predicting a shortage of coffee within the next 3 years.  Strangely the price paid to producers means they aren't likely to want to increase productivity, as according to Mintec, the price of Arabica coffee has fallen by 35pc over the last year. If I run out of coffee, there will be no more sessions.)

Farmers are warning that there will be a shortage of pumpkins in the run up to Halloween. (Following the ideal growing conditions in August and September, the heavy rain of October has put a damper on everything by making the pumpkin skins soft, which means they get soggy and collapse before they can be harvested. In Germany there are lots of pumpkins, but they are smaller than usual, due to a shortage of rain.  Who'd want to be a farmer?)

There is a problem in the UK, we have a pumpkin shortage. (A cold snap and wet weather has meant hundreds of thousands of pumpkins have been left rotting in fields. Some areas have already sold out, but Sainsbury's are expecting to sell almost 1.5million pumpkins over the Halloween period.)

According to retail consultancy Conlumino, food prices will soar by 17.8% by 2018. (Global food shortages will put an extra 25p on the price of a loaf of bread. The household food bill for the average family in the UK will shoot up; a family spending £500 a month on food six years ago could now have to find as much as £800 – an extra £3,600 a year.  The UK's annual food bill will rise by £19.6 billion. Erratic' weather, and growing global demand for meat and grain are to blame. Time to get the spade out and start digging those vegetable patches over, or maybe if we didn't waste as much:- http://www.afactaday.co.uk/2013/01/interesting-fact-waste_12.html.)