Pricing has strengthened on lettuce supplies from the West Coast. "The supply of romaine, red and green leaf lettuces is out there but due to the rains two to three weeks ago, the price has been driven up," says Geoffrey Ratto of Ratto Bros Inc. "We hadn't seen prices rise on leaf lettuce for six to eight months now."
With those rains, some regions received hail as well which in turn, caused some lettuce damage as part of an overall quality decline. Supply is coming out of the Yuma, Arizona desert region. "All of these rains that we've had, especially in the desert and Northern California, will make spring a little more challenging. So the Northern California and Central Coast regions will probably start leaf lettuce later than usual," says Ratto. "It will be by a couple of weeks but it won't be the same as last year's transition." Last year the regions saw historical rainfall and some crops didn't see harvest until late May when generally, they start in mid-April.
The state of lettuce demand
As for leaf lettuce demand, it's steady even though the market has risen significantly in the past week. "Complications with the weather are going to make it a bit more of a challenge going forward," says Ratto. "If there's not going to be a tremendous amount of demand, pricing will start to fall."
He adds that growers in general are looking for some relief right now. "Generally markets are driven by unfortunate situations such as weather. However because the market has been down for so long, everyone's probably breathing a bit of a sigh of relief and hoping that they have the volume to sustain it to get back a bit," says Ratto.
For more information:
Geoffrey Ratto
Ratto Bros.
Tel: +1 (209) 545-7575
gratto@rattobros.com
www.rattobros.com