1946 | Food Availability
Food Availability
Britain announces February 7 that food rations will be cut in response to world shortages, but London's Covent Garden fruit merchants offer bananas March 8 for the first time since the war. A world wheat shortage forces rationing of bread, which was never rationed during the war. The government reduces the unit weight of a one-pound loaf of bread to 14 ounces, the two-pound loaf is reduced to 28 ounces, the four-pound loaf to 3½ pounds, and the measure effectively ends traditional measures of bread weight (see 1916). Restrictions on most other staple foods ensue, and by August there are reports of a black market in chocolate.