Ribena's owner, Suntory Beverage & Food, is investing £200,000 to help British blackcurrant bushes cope with increasingly extreme weather, after a difficult growing season squeezed this year's harvest. The move highlights how the climate crisis is disrupting traditional UK fruit and vegetable growing, with knock-on effects for both farmers' livelihoods and the supply of homegrown produce.

The 2026 harvest, now under way across East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Kent and Scotland, is expected to come in around 10% below the average of 10,000 tonnes. Growers said bushes were battered first by one of the wettest winters on record, then by spring frosts and hail, and finally by June and July heatwaves that scorched fruit and caused premature dropping, with little rain forecast before the harvest ends in early August. Suntory is funding research alongside the Blackcurrant Foundation and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany at East Malling in Kent to improve soil health and develop hardier bush varieties, while other crops such as strawberries, potatoes and wheat are also reported to be under strain from the hot, dry spell.