Record rainfall in New South Wales has caused major supply shortages for popular herb varieties around Australia, exacerbated by three major floods within months. Shaun Lindhe, the national communications manager at AusVeg, said market gardens in Queensland and NSW had been hit by weeks of floods, cold weather, and rain, pushing up the price of many herbs.
“It’s the same issues we’re seeing with other vegetables, [and] there’s still issues around increased cost production impacting growers across the board,” he said. “Even when availability increases with cheaper prices, costs for growers will still remain quite high… herbs aren’t easy to grow [commercially] and not cheap to grow.”
A Coles spokesperson said the supermarket chain had not put up prices, but supplies of most of the herbs it stocked had diminished in recent months, although things were now starting to improve.
Source: theguardian.com