Is something going on with cabbages currently?

Cafe Society
1

Two weeks ago I tried to buy coleslaw in the deli department of my usual grocery store. They had none on the shelves. (They stopped doing the ‘dish it out’ from a big tub thing for all sorts of stuff at some point in the past years. Not chicken salad, not potato salad, not coleslaw, etc Pre-packaged smallish tubs only.) Oh, well, I was picking a few things up after eight p.m. and figured they’d just had a run on it and hadn’t had time to restock.

The next week, at mid-afternoon, there again was no coleslaw. Lots of macaroni and chicken and tuna salad tubs, at least four types of potato salads, no coleslaw at all. Hmmm?

This past Friday same story. This time I waited to question one of the workers in department, if there was a supply in their storage area that just hadn’t made it out to the shelf yet. Or maybe they were now selling coleslaw out of a different department? Nope. She added that they haven’t been getting any in ‘for a while.’ No, she had no idea why.

Today I was running other errands and was right near a different grocery store (DeMoulas vs. my usual Stop & Shop) and they didn’t have coleslaw either.

So, what’s going on? Are they hoarding cabbages in the run up to St. Patrick’s day or something? This is the Boston area, so I imagine a lot of corned beef and cabbage dinners are anticipated.

Or is there some cabbage disease taking a toll or what?

2

We just had coleslaw with dinner tonight. Haven’t noticed a shortage at all - had some a couple weeks ago too. I get the Fresh Express coleslaw kit that’s sold in the produce section. I’m in the Southeast.

3

I had some of a pint of grocery store deli coleslaw purchased last week. And they had 50 pound boxes of Napa cabbage on special last time I was at the Korean grocery about two weeks ago.

4

I bought a cabbage recently to make coleslaw. It was incredibly dense, a magnificent cabbage.

5

Okay, so it’s just my local store? I guess the produce manager hates cabbage or something.

6

I have a coleslaw recipe that uses both regular (bagged) coleslaw and broccoli slaw, and by far it’s the broccoli slaw that is more hit or miss than the regular slaw. About the only time I have trouble finding regular slaw is when the whole produce department is badly in need of restocking.