Supermarkets using cardboard cutouts of fruit and vegetables to mask food shortages were ridiculed online by social media users today.
Customers at stores including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Boots poked fun at the shops with photos of fake food in the place of empty shelves.
Issues in supply chains have hit many retailers, from toy shops and petrol stations to food shops.
One Twitter user wrote: 'Mmmm, delicious photos of asparagus,' while another commented on an enlarged picture of the vegetable piled up, 'I love that asparagus grows to this size in the UK. It's our climate, I'm sure.'
Supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Boots have used cardboard cutouts of food as a way to supposedly hide empty shelves
Boots at Croydon Whitgift Centre used empty triangular cardboard boxes to bolster their sandwich aisle
Tesco used photos of asparagus, oranges, carrots and grapes printed on cardboard panels instead of offering its customers the real thing.
Meanwhile, Boots at Croydon Whitgift Centre used empty triangular cardboard boxes to bolster their sandwich shelves.
Shoppers saw cardboard asparagus in London, pictures of oranges and grapes in Milton Keynes, fake carrots in Fakenham, and 2D bottles of washing liquid bottles in Cambridge.
Social media users poked fun at shops using photographs of produce to compensate for empty shelves
Twitter user Cait McLaughlin joked 'Mmmm delicious photo of asparagus' as a picture of the vegetable was pasted on a cardboard cutout
Sainsbury's also employed outline drawings of packaging to fill its empty shelves.
Low wages and shortages of workers in part owing to Brexit and Covid has left Britain with a shortage of HGV drivers as well as fruit pickers on farms and food processing staff at factories.
Although some experts hope in the long-term this will drive up wages for British workers, the short term consequence of the shortages included bare aisles at supermarkets.
It wasn't just food but washing liquid bottles as well that got the two-dimensional treatment in some of Britain's supermarkets
