Foraging has a place in the fine dining world. Those niche items go beyond mushrooms. “We have a lot of spring products available,” said Sean Ptaszenski of Seashore West Inc. He says their other foraged items like the wild ramps are popular now as well as green, fuzzy young almonds and miner’s lettuce. “Anything that you wouldn’t find in the grocery store is what we’re messing with,” he said.
There are no humans involved in the propagation of these foods except when the produce is picked. “It tends to be smaller volume and higher price. You can’t compare it to industrial farming. It’s a completely different deal.” Foraged items cannot be marketed as organic.
High nutritional content
Its name has a simple meaning. Sometimes called winter purslane, Indian lettuce of spring beauty, this succulent leafy lettuce got this nickname from California’s Gold Rush. It’s extremely high in vitamin C, making it an important item in a prospector’s diet to prevent scurvy. It’s also high in omega 3s and iron. “It tends to be more perishable than regular lettuces,” said Ptaszenski.
The company distributes this, and other items, to fine dining restaurants across the US. Volumes aren’t large, but fair. Ptaszenski says they’ll pull about 10-15 out per day for air order customers. Sourced from Oregon, the season for miner’s lettuce is a short one: Ptaszenski says they’ll have it just until the end of April; prices for 25lb units are currently in the mid to high $30 range. With a tart taste profile, chefs often use miner’s lettuce in salads with other specialty foods such as edible orchids and other flowers.
Regular leaf lettuce suffers quality issues
The regular leaf lettuce deal suffered from the adverse weather in California. “We got too much rain and there were quality issues for things like regular romaine lettuce and iceberg but we really don’t see the specialty lettuces affected the same way,” he said. Supplies affected were mainly from the Salinas Valley. “There was a lot of product out there that didn’t warrant shipping because of the quality issues.” Sea Shore West will donate produce to local food banks for secondary use that won’t work for regular business.
Regular lettuce market is really high
Regular lettuces, including romaine are such a staple that Ptaszenski says when quality issues happen the grower has to prorate their regular business and split between all customers. “It’s still happening now and it’s crazy. You’re seeing romaine lettuce as high as mid $50s wholesale cost for a 12x3 count in a case.” Usually lettuce deals transition from state to state, tending to overlap. “That’s when you can get deals but with the adverse weather it created quality issues; everyone’s being prorated so the market is really high. We get people coming out of the woodwork looking for lettuce when situations like this happen.”
Spring items like young green strawberries are continuing to increase in popularity, something Ptaszenski says a lot of chefs were pickling. “That was something that was very small two years ago and now we get heavy demand for it every spring.”
For more information:
Sean Ptaszenski
Seashore West Inc.
Tel: 213-627-0208