Wetherspoons warns of ‘supply issues’ affecting drinks orders

Wetherspoons has issued a notice warning customers of supply chain issues and advising them to consider altering their drink orders.

The value pub chain owned by Tim Martin has encountered issues acquiring limes to garnish its drinks and, due to the wax coating on the limes it can get in, these will no longer be vegan-friendly as they may contain animal derivatives.

Wetherspoons has extended an apology and suggested that customers might prefer to order their drinks without the “fruit garnish” and notices have been displayed across its venues alerting customers: “Because of a short-term supply issue, we cannot currently guarantee that the lime used in drinks is vegan. This is because the coating used commonly in citrus fruits contains animal products.”

The Wetherspoons website highlighted how it normally stocks its lemons and limes, along with other citrus fruits from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay, and the US. Additionally, it has previously outlined how it takes pride in making sure that its lemons and limes are vegan with a plant-based wax coating.

According to the Centre for Food Safety, many fruits are coated in wax to help them last longer as well as appear more appealing and this can allegedly be done by using either synthetic or natural ingredients. As such, while some waxes used to coat fruits are plant-based including carnauba and candelilla, others come from insects, including shellac and beeswax.

In a recent report with the national press, a Wetherspoons spokesperson said: “Wetherspoons sources its lemons and limes from a vegan-friendly supplier. However, for a limited period of time, we are using a different supplier for our limes across our pubs. We cannot, with the new supplier, guarantee that the limes are vegan friendly and as a result have put up the notice in our pubs.”