A shortage of fruit and vegetables will last three to four weeks, the former environment secretary said.
George Eustice also insisted the government could have done “not much” to prevent empty shelves in supermarkets.
The government and industry blame bad weather in Spain and North Africa for the bottleneck.
But chef and restaurateur Thomasina Miers warned that the food system was “completely broken”.
Major UK supermarkets have restricted fruit and veg sales following shortages and consumers have found empty shelves in some stores.
Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, salad bags, broccoli and cauliflower are missing.
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Growers have warned the shortages could last into May, with the situation made worse by UK growers delaying planting crops due to high energy costs.
But speaking to the BBC on Sunday with the Laura Kuenssberg show, Mr Eustice said he expected the problems to last around “three to four weeks”.
Blaming a “weather cocktail” for the problems, he added that food prices have always been closely linked to energy prices, which have been skyrocketed by the war in Ukraine.
He also said there was “not much the government could have done in recent months” and “there is nothing they can do immediately” to avoid the problems affecting supply chains.
Mr Eustice said supermarkets “need to work to get it right” to ensure the disruption in supplies of some vegetables is restored.
He acknowledged that action had to be taken “in the longer term”.
“We should commit to onshore production, so greenhouse production of cucumbers and tomatoes, we should try to build that up here,” he said.
But Ms Miers, who runs restaurant chain Wahaca, called for an overhaul of the government’s approach to food.
She described Britain’s food system as “completely broken” and said: “There’s a time bomb we’re sitting on”.
She warned, “If we think cucumbers and tomatoes are bad, we’re going to look a lot worse in the next decade.”
Ms Miers called for more investment in regenerative agriculture and the use of technology to help farmers transition to more sustainable food production methods.
But Mr Eustice defended the government’s record, saying: “We now have almost half the farmers in what we call countryside stewardship doing exactly the kind of regenerative farming that Thomasina is talking about.”
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