Is anyone else getting raped in the produce industry?
Niccademoyesirrrrrrr,
Get romainne
i paid $30 for Romaine Yesterday.
Oh, great! Did they figure out how to turn lettuce into Ethanol too?
Hopefully someone is working on a way to make cheese out of petroleum… maybe then my costs will come back into line. :roll:
ICEBERG - 48.00,
ROMA - 30.00
Check Romaine out at Costco - I pay $21 for a case (42 heads) that is basically ready to chop and serve, also have a lot less waste than when I bought from a distributor.
Not to scare anyone but maybe something to be careful of- I use the spring mix lettuce all nice and clean already sealed and vacuum packed. yesterday I opened a bag and went to make a salad. Noticed a brown spot so went to take that piece of lettuce off- dont know why but I turned it over not a very little worm on it. Needless to say absolutely disgusted gag reflex going just thinking about it. I shudder to think- what if. If I was busy if it was one of the other workers, something that could basically ruin your business right? Oh and of course health dept. stopped in about half hour later. I called my rep and told him how disgusted I was and they better find the problem. Got my answer today when he credited me 1 bag of lettuce for $4. I dont know what I expected, but I certainly never would have expected that worm!!!YUCK!
Kay
atlanta farmers market was $39.00 a case for iceberg too. that hurts as bad as the cheese
If the spring mix is organic that is actually somewhat common. I found a live lady bug in my salad before and a co-worker of mine actually got a small, live frog in theirs (spring mix also). They use them for pest control… not sure about the worms though. 
- aba
Don’t know the size relationships . . .but ladybugs start out as caterpillars.
i thought butterflies start out as caterpillars.
but i’m no bug specialist
doesn’t anyone use a chopped romaine/iceberg blend? 80/20…
sysco this week 23 per case. cleaned and ready… carrots and red cabbage added already. i add 1 case of spring mix 9.99, to the 4 bags and get a great looking and tasty salad.
We had a lot of quality problems with Sysco’s 80/20 blend recently. Sometimes we got an entire case that was already rotten (or at least so bad looking that I wouldn’t serve it. We stopped buying it altogether because it got so bad.
Could depend on the part of the country you’re in though… it may have already been several days old when we received it.
Our case of iceberg has been holding steady at around $23.00 for the past 6 weeks though. $45 seems to be excessive.
all or most produce comes from the salinas valley…hard times for produce…
do you use a lot of lettuce?..if so, how much…
processed shred lettuce sells for 4/5# 20.00 per case
do the math
its not the distributor of your choice fault - market conditions make this happen…
good luck - no different than any other commodity - when bad weather hits - buyers of commodities pay for it - raise your price
Goomba,
Head north a little bit. Here in the Lehigh Valley we were quoted $30/case for iceberg as of yesterday. Good quality too. Usually, when the price goes up, the quality goes down.
The other day I had this discussion with a friend of mine, apparently there was allot of flooding in Arizona back in the early 90’s and the lettuce crop got wiped out back then sending ice burg lettuce price upwards of $50 a case.
He told me that he was approached by a firm that sold Chopped Lettuce, he said they bought there contracts a year in advance, and he was able to buy chopped bags of lettuce for about half the price.
head lettuce came in this morning at $18 for 24 heads