Drought: how climate change is changing your shopping basket

Dry diet on the shelves of your supermarket. The historic drought affecting France, against a backdrop of repeated heatwaves since the end of spring, is causing production to fall and the price of fruits and vegetables to rise. But that's not all. The scarcity of water and the rise in temperatures linked to climate change are disrupting the entire agricultural world and creating unexpected consequences in your basket and on your plate. From the size of the fries to the taste of the cheese, including the alcohol level of the wine, we take a tour of the relevant aisles.

Fruits and vegetables with defects

Biscuit pears, thin beans, clawed zucchini... The fruit and vegetable stalls have a slightly baroque look at the end of summer. And for good reason, "the real particularity this year is this combination of drought and temperature records", explains Daniel Sauvaitre, arborist in Charente and president of the Interprofession of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (Interfel), to AFP. Result: his apples may be discolored, or even slightly burnt... but "they remain very sweet", he insists. “This year, what we called broken faces are becoming a huge majority of production,” adds Nicolas Chabanne, founder of the brand Who’s the boss?!.

An aesthetic change that could put customers off. So, supermarkets are taking the lead. Auchan thus warns: "We can currently find salads of smaller sizes on our shelves, or tomatoes, zucchini, with traces of 'scratches'. Small defects which have no impact on the flavor of the products", assures the brand. Leclerc, Carrefour, Coopérative U, Casino... The main brands have committed to being more tolerant, particularly with regard to the sizes and aspects of fruits and vegetables. “The products may be less pretty than usual, but buy them anyway, you will be supporting French farmers,” said Dominique Schelcher, CEO of Coopérative U, in Le Parisien.

Even rarer eggs

Hot weather in poultry houses. Since June, the heatwave has caused the death of 700,000 laying hens, according to the inter-professional association, or nearly 2% of the flock. The surviving hens will also “consume less cereal and therefore will produce fewer eggs and smaller eggs”, specifies Alice Richard, director of the National Committee for the Promotion of Eggs (CNPO). Enough to cause new temporary shortages in certain supermarket departments.

Professionals still want to be reassuring, this trend being “completely reversible”, according to Alice Richard. The fact remains that producers have had to cope with sustained demand for several years. In general, egg consumption has increased "by 5% per year for three years", she specifies, before recognizing: "Production is still struggling to follow and catch up with this consumption dynamic."

Smaller fries and chips

“How do you want to cut a fry in there?” Like most potato farmers, Mathieu Comijn is disappointed when he turns the earth in his fields. “Normally, they should be at least four times this size,” explains the Belgian farmer to AFP, showing a potato the size of a ping-pong ball. A growth problem linked to drought which leads to a “massive” drop in production, according to the National Union of Potato Producers (UNPT).

“We should expect the fries to be much smaller,” confirms Dominique Schelcher, CEO of Coopérative U, in Le Parisien. Allow three or four centimeters less in the horn, according to a professional in the sector. Same for chips. “In the packets, they will be smaller chips than usual, but they won’t be small either!” assures Martial Mazingarbe, producer of this aperitif biscuit, in La Voix du Nord.

Cheeses with a less pronounced taste

Change of recipe for many French cheeses. While the drought has roasted the green grass of many regions, the specifications of several AOP cheeses have been temporarily relaxed. Concretely, the grazing time of the cows which produce reblochon has thus been reduced by 30 days and the producers of abundance will be able to use more fodder (and less grass) to feed the animals. Changes that impact the taste, smell and color of the cheese.

“When cows eat grass on pasture, the cheeses are softer, yellower and more aromatic, while when they eat little or no grass, the cheeses are whiter, firmer and have less pronounced flavors,” explained the authors of a study published in 2025 in the scientific journal Journal of Dairy Science. With the drought, the cheeses will be "rather white like in winter", confirms a county producer to RTL.

More alcoholic wines and champagnes

Harvests with a bitter taste. Wine production is expected to decline to a historically low level this year, due to drought and heatwaves, according to the statistics service of the Ministry of Agriculture (Agreste). The 2026 vintage should therefore be rare, but also more alcoholic. As temperatures increase, the grapes become sweeter and therefore produce wines with more alcohol. This phenomenon – already observed in recent years due to climate change – is expected to become even more pronounced after this scorching summer. The Champagne Committee also announced, on September 9, that it had obtained exceptional authorization to market bottles with more than 13% – and up to 15% – alcohol due to the particularly rapid maturation of the grapes.

Some vintages could also have a slight smoky taste... due to the fires (favored by the drought) which burned thousands of hectares, particularly in Bordeaux or the Var. “The big question is whether we are going to have burnt tastes or not during winemaking. We are in the unknown,” confides an operations manager in the region to France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The Union of French Oenologists still wants to be reassuring, no smoky notes have been detected for the moment.

Bagged salads missing from the shelves

This is one of the most visible shortages on supermarket shelves. Bagged salads have disappeared from many stores. And for good reason: very high temperatures and drought have particularly affected ground vegetables. “Normally, a salad should be ten times that,” laments Dominique David, market gardener, in front of XXS-sized oak leaves.

“Spinach, arugula, mesclun, iceberg, oak leaf or lettuce”, all shoots are affected, also deplores Loïc Letierce, market gardener in Loire-Atlantique. The president of the 4th range Vegetables association, those sold in bags, recalls that "the leaves are thin, they are clearly exposed to light, fragile to climatic conditions".