New York, NY – Prepare to Shell Out More Green for Lettuce as Prices Jump

New York, NY – $3.49 for a head of Romaine? That’s a lot of cabbage for some lettuce.

Thanks to a cold snap in California, lettuce prices have exploded in the last month. Tomato prices have jumped too – 300% in some cases.

“I’m just shocked. I compare prices all the time,” housewife Tatiana Martinez said Tuesday, at a Key Food in Sunnyside Queens.
A head of Iceberg was 89 cents there last month and now it’s $2.49, store manager Joey Zaharich said. Beefsteak tomatoes went from 79 cents to $1.99 per pound, he said.

At Fairway on Broadway and 74th St. in Manhattan, the retail price for Romaine last month was $1.99 a head. Now, it’s $2.99.
Peter Romano, produce manager for Fairway Markets, which sells 1.2 million heads of lettuce a year at five locations, said wholesale prices are up across the metropolitan area.

“I was paying $16 to $18 a case for Romaine – that’s 24 heads – six weeks ago. And then it tripled to $48,” he said.

Romano said Fairway and other large markets did not pass along the full increase, instead taking a cut in profit margins “because 300% more is just too much for customers.”

How much green New Yorkers had to shell out for lettuce depended on where they shopped, with prices varying widely.

A head of Romaine was $3.49 Tuesday at the Associated Market on Fifth Ave. in Park Slope, Brooklyn, while it was $1.99 at the Met Supermarket, on Smith St., in Carroll Gardens. Tomatoes were $2.99 at Associated and $1.99 a pound at the Met.