Short supply of vegetables blamed on frost

PRESCOTT, Wis. -- When Katie Heltne took an after-school job at Ptacek's grocery store, produce was not exactly top of mind for the Prescott High School junior.

"I had no idea like, what an avocado was," laughs Heltne.

But seven months later she can tell you all about the year's biggest story in the nation's produce aisles: steep price hikes and many vegetables in short supply.

At Ptacek's Monday that meant not a single egg plant or Roma tomato in sight. "It's the weather," said Heltne, repeating an apology she's had to make often in recent weeks. "We can't help it; it's nature."

As a produce wholesaler, Todd Carnicom was in the vegetable business before Heltne was born. But the extent of this year's crop damage is new to him too.

"The unusual thing that happened this year was a freeze in Mexico," says the wholesale sales manager for Russ Davis Wholesale. "The freeze actually went down through the dessert of California, through Arizona. It affected the lettuce crops, it affected the cucumbers, it affected the bell peppers, the egg plants, the zucchini, the yellow squash and of course it affected the tomatoes."

Carnicom says lettuce growers were particularly hard hit, first by a virus and then by the frost. "Most lettuce shippers that you talk to will probably tell you it's been the worst season they've had since they can remember."

Carnicom says the shortages should ease as new crops of vegetables from the Southern United States start arriving in stores in about a month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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