Lucas Crandall / Staff reporter
Recently, Canada has been hit with a huge increase in lettuce prices. Everywhere from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island has been facing prices as high as $7 for a head of romaine lettuce. Restaurants have even begun to remove lettuce from their menus temporarily.
The reason for this huge spike in price is a huge lettuce drought and crop disease in California. According to an article written by Caleb Hampton called “Salinas Valley farmers hit by lettuce virus”, a virus spread by insects is causing widespread damage to lettuce crops in the Salinas Valley, which provides more than one-half of America’s lettuce.
The Salinas Valley is often referred to as the “Salad Bowl of America” due to the large amounts of lettuce it produces each year. The Salinas Valley is responsible for about $1.2 billion in annual lettuce production (Hampton, 2022).
This virus has caused a gigantic shortage across Canada and America, causing prices to rise as demand gets higher than supply. Gordon Dean, who runs Mike Dean Local Grocer Ltd. in Ontario has stated that even getting one quarter of the amount of lettuce he usually needs for his business is considered lucky. Dean says that when a bag of lettuce is $15, “nobody is buying it anyway”.
Kelly Higginson, Restaurants Canada’s COO spoke about this rising issue earlier in November. Higginson stated that along with this virus, a drought and heat wave from the year prior had already created difficulties for the lettuce farmers in Salinas Valley (Saba, 2022). “[Salinas Valley] has had crops decimated. So there’s a massive shortage…” said Higginson.
Fast-food chains to higher class restaurants have been announcing the removal of lettuce from their menus for the time being. Subway has stated that lettuce will be unavailable at certain locations, while Swiss Chalet’s Canadian division has announced that their salads containing lettuce will not be available, along with lettuce being removed from any products that contained it prior. Both companies said that this was due to the industry-wide shortage. (Saba, 2022).
In Price Edward Island, inflation has been hitting residents hard on just about every product. Romain lettuce is no exception to this.
Nikki Cudmore, supervising waitress at Little Cristo’s Pizzeria in Charlottetown, PEI stated that a box of lettuce cost them $63 last year. “We’re now looking at $165 for a full box,” Cudmore said. “So we’re not even making any money off of any of our products that have lettuce in them anymore.” (Walton, 2022).
Higginson has stated that events like this have become more common recently. She has told restaurants to try switching to other greens, like spinach and kale, however, prices of those products could also rise due to the increase demand. (Saba, 2022)
For the time being, restaurants must try to get through the epidemic and decide whether it is worth it to continue to buy lettuce, find substitutes, or simply drop the leafy green until the prices begin to fall back down to normal.
Cites:
Lettuce shortage leads to higher prices in Canada | CTV News
Lettuce prices have nearly tripled in the past year for some P.E.I. restaurants | CBC News
Canada’s lettuce problem: What $15 romaine says about our food system | Financial Post