Brighton, UK Beachgoers Puzzled by Produce Washing Ashore

Eastbourne is not the only place in England dealing with an unexpected wave of chips and onions. Further along the coast in Brighton, visitors were left confused as a stream of seemingly “random” items continued to appear on the shoreline.

Cornwall’s beaches are still known for the regular appearance of Lego bricks from a container ship spill in 1997. This time, however, a very different type of cargo has been affecting the East Sussex coast, as Brighton resident Wednesday Holmes discovered last week.

“This evening, quite randomly lots of fresh produce has washed up on the beach - I’m assuming it’s from a catering department of a ship,” she said in a TikTok video. After opening one of the mesh sacks containing celeriac, she found individual cabbages, onions, and limes scattered across the beach.

“There’s not much of a bounty on this side, but on the other side of the beach where more and more people are appearing there’s big, fat sweet potatoes, oranges and lemons,” she added.

Wednesday also said that other locals had come across unopened bottles of gin and beer among the debris. “It’s really odd,” she commented. “I just bumped into another dog walker and he’s collecting the lime so that he can take it home to make a lime chutney.”

She later told her followers that another dog walker believed the items may have been dumped into the sea by a ship near the Isle of Wight.

Another Brighton beachgoer, Jess Glynn, was also filming on the same day. “Your eyes don’t deceive you - those are onions you’re seeing in Brighton and Hove!” she said in her own video.

She continued: “This is incredibly random, but there are onions washing up in Brighton right now. The cargo ship was completely full of fresh produce… there’s carrots, onions, potatoes and full-on bags of coconuts, milk and cans of beer… everything is just washing up.”

Taking a more serious tone, Jess encouraged people to help collect the debris, noting that local authorities were especially keen to recover “anything that doesn’t decompose”. After filling a bucket with plastic, rope, and polystyrene, she urged viewers: “If you can pick up just one thing it will make a massive difference.”

Other TikTok users also shared their experiences. One wrote: “My sister also found a case of Thai lager, some plastic gloves and face masks.” Another added: “They are all over Seaford/Newhaven too, I feel like I’ve watched too much walking dead as I’m like ooh they would love finding that food.”

A third commented: “Not just Brighton. There’s onions, plastic cups and hand sanitiser containers spread all along the East and West Sussex coast.” A fourth joked: “Was there a leek in the container?”

Reinforcing the calls for caution and cleanup, Brighton and Hove City Council issued a statement online following the incident: “Council teams have been working to clear the seafront and keep residents safe over the last few days, following shingle and debris washing up as a result of Storm Goretti. The storm brought high tides and strong winds, pushing large amounts of shingle around, including onto promenades and access points.”