Some Maritime restaurants shelving salads over lettuce shortage

The high cost of lettuce is causing some restaurants to temporarily halt serving salads.

The Pizza Mill in Salisbury, N.B., recently shared on social media that it will not be offering any salads for the time being due to extremely high costs and limited availability of lettuce.

Swiss Chalet and some Subway restaurants are also stopping or reducing lettuce use due a nation-wide lettuce shortage.

In Halifax, the owner of The Old Triangle Irish Alehouse said his restaurant has shelved their Caesar salad.

“Just like everyone else, the price of lettuce for us has doubled or tripled in the course of a week and so we’re just like most other people we’re just not buying it until the price comes down unfortunately,” said Brendan Doherty.

Fruit and vegetable wholesaler Brad Keddy said he has some customers who have taken lettuce off their menu and others who are ordering just a partial case.

“The cost of a case of iceberg lettuce is up in that 120 to 130 dollars a case for 24 heads,” said Keddy. “That’s just unheard of for this time of year.”

Supermarket customers are also feeling the increase.

“That’s more than I’d prefer to pay, but I’m not going to go without and not get it,” said shopper Wabuhno Howe, who was picking up romaine lettuce Wednesday for her Caesar salad recipe.

“I went through a drive-thru and they said there’s a shortage and so they have none for their burgers,” Howe said.

At Superstore, Sobeys and Dave’s Fruit and Vegetable Market in the Halifax Regional Municipality, a head of iceberg lettuce now costs $4.99. At the same stores, the cost of a head of romaine lettuce ranges from $4.49 to $5.99.

Sylvain Charlebois, the Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab and professor at Dalhousie University notes the price hike can be traced back to California where there was a drought earlier this year.

“Plants were weakened by the fact that the weather was very dry. And a virus came in and destroyed many crops,” Charlebois said.

Charlebois also believes the shortage and hike will be temporary and prices should go down in December.

In a statement, Subway Canada says it anticipates supply will improve in the coming weeks.