Climate chaos hits food supply chains as heatwave rewrites rules

The era of planning food supply chains around “normal” weather may be coming to an end. Extreme heat in 2026 has exposed how quickly harvests, raw-material availability, and ingredient costs can be disrupted – forcing food manufacturers to rethink where they source, how much they hold, and which ingredients they can afford to rely on.

The food industry has seen climate risks coming for years. Europe’s 2026 heatwave showed how devastatingly fast those risks can become reality.

Europe is still tallying the losses, but the scale of the damage in some areas is already clear – and unprecedented.

France’s corn harvest captures the scale of the crisis. Production in the EU’s largest corn-producing country is expected to fall by half to below 7 million tonnes – its lowest level in 50 years, according to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

The heatwave also showed how widely the effects of such weather extremes can vary – hitting not only the commodities everyone was watching, but also unexpected ingredients and products further down the supply chain.

One example is from the UK. “During what should have been the peak domestic growing season, wholesalers, restaurants and supermarkets had to source iceberg lettuce and broccoli from Spain and the Netherlands,” commented Ronald Guendel, president of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA).

Broccoli yields in some areas were reported to have fallen by half, while wholesale prices increased sharply for lettuce, tomatoes and potatoes.

“This shows how a weather event quickly becomes a commercial issue: companies may still keep products on the shelves, but only by changing suppliers, accepting different product specifications and paying more,” Guendel said.

The 2026 European heatwave may have been the most high-profile warning yet, but it was hardly an isolated event.

“In 2026 alone, we’ve already seen extreme flooding, heatwaves, and wildfires all impacting the day-to-day lives of local communities and their crop yields,” commented Anna Pierce, Tate & Lyle director of sustainability.

The growing frequency of such events is forcing businesses to rethink how resilient their supply chains really are.

“After this year’s extreme weather, without question, businesses in this sector will again be reassessing how they source key agricultural commodities,” Pierce added.

For decades, food companies could treat extreme weather as a low-probability risk and plan accordingly. But as once-in-a-generation disruptions become more frequent, that assumption is coming under pressure.

“The science tells us that there will be some regions of the world which will become hotter or cooler, drier or wetter,” commented Brendan Niemira, PhD, chief science and technology officer, Institute of Food Technologists.

Undoubtedly, these changes will affect animal and plant production, as well as the spread and persistence of animal and plant diseases and parasitic insects, Niemira believes.

Bigger impacts on food from climate

“More broadly, climate models predict a general increase in extreme weather events and other disruptions to traditional forms and modes of production of agricultural commodities,” Niemira said, adding that food manufacturers have no other choice but to adapt to these disruptions.

The ability to conduct effective traceback on all of these ingredients to their original sources will be an essential part of ensuring food safety and quality, he said.

Ingredient suppliers are already recognising that the consequences can extend far beyond the crops directly hit by extreme weather. One event can disrupt multiple commodities at once, sending shockwaves through a much wider range of ingredients and supply chains.

“Over the past several years, we’ve seen significant impacts of climate events across a wide range of agricultural commodities, including cocoa, sugar, coconuts, grains, and more,” Marc De Schutter, chief procurement officer for North America at Kerry, said.

“The reality is that climate events are affecting more and more crops globally, creating both supply and pricing challenges throughout the food system,” De Schutter admitted.

In many cases, De Schutter continued, the effects extend beyond the crops themselves. Ingredients such as corn and soy have multiple end uses across food, animal feed, and biofuels.

“When climate-related events affect harvest yields, those competing demands can put additional pressure on supply availability and markets. Similar dynamics exist for other commodities, such as coconuts, which are used across food, beverage, and personal care applications,” De Schutter added.

DSM-Firmenich, in turn, sees extreme weather as one of the key forces reshaping food ingredient sourcing, according to Emmanuel Drieux, senior director sustainability, taste, texture and health, DSM-Firmenich

But Drieux says climate change is only one part of a much broader risk picture, alongside resource constraints, geopolitical uncertainty and social pressures.

The logic is simple: if one region is hit by extreme weather, another needs to be ready to fill the gap. For food manufacturers, sourcing the same ingredient from multiple suppliers and geographies is becoming a central strategy for keeping products moving when weather disrupts production.

Tate & Lyle, for example, came prepared for the devastating 2026 F