Shoppers have been noticing that the prices of several lettuce varieties have gone astronomically high.
A package of three heads of romaine lettuce is selling for $15 in some New York City markets, and red leaf and green leaf heads are up to $5 each. Iceberg prices are out-of-control, up to $7.00 a head!
According to Bloomberg, a pound of romaine has increased 61% in price since last year. It’s the highest price since 2006.
The price of lettuce is the most significant price increase for any food product in the recent past.
Even restaurants are adjusting by changing their menus and leaving lettuce out of sandwiches. Some stores are not carrying popular types of lettuce at all due to high prices and shortages.
What’s going on?
Farmers are growing less lettuce and some other crops as well, because they don’t want to have an excess, due to the market’s instability since the pandemic. Prices farms have to pay have gone up too – the price of fertilizer has increased – and the cost of transporting food has increased due to a shortage of truck drivers. These factors contribute to the financial strains facing the agriculture industry.
Inflation isn’t the only reason the price of lettuce has been going up. A virus that affects lettuce fields and causes significant losses of harvest for farmers has an impact on pricing.
The virus affecting lettuce is impatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV). Both INSV and pythium wilt have been detected in laboratory testing of lettuce plants. This is nothing new, but it has been an escalating problem this year.
Around three summers ago, the INSV affliction started striking the Salinas Valley in California, a major US source of produce. According to Penn State University, INSV produces “wilting, stunting, stem death, yellowing, poor flowering, ‘chicken pox like’ sunken patches on leaves, etches, or ring marks on leaves.” Farmers have to inspect the crops to make sure the virus isn’t spreading. If a harvest is ruined, there is less supply, increased demand and higher prices.
Unfortunately, this is now the case for most of the lettuce harvests farmed in the United States. Director of Produce Merchandising at Baldor Specialty Foods Kenneth Bower says that while the virus has been getting worse year after year, this year has been disastrous. He said that the California region’s hot summer weather enhanced the effects of the virus and that all local farmers are now impacted, resulting in a large portion of the crop not being harvested. Bower claims that the virus has affected various produce crops, including iceberg, romaine hearts, green leaf, red leaf, butter, jewels, and artisan lettuces.
He said that other growing regions don’t start to kick in with a higher supply until around the second week of November. As produce starts coming in from Yuma, Arizona’s growing region, shoppers should start seeing supplies increase again by December. Keep an eye on December and see if supplies go up and prices go down.
Thankfully, INSV does not affect all leafy vegetables.
Baldor Specialty Foods encourages customers to experiment more with the greens that are now in greater supply, such as tender leaf products, including spring mix, baby spinach, baby kale, endive, hydro butter, wild arugula, and radicchio.