Those of us in America have likely seen the news: the stock market sinking, consumer confidence dropping, Alan Greenspan emerging from his cave to exorcise the financial spirits, and people start throwing around the word recession.
So all of this is kind of in the back of my head while I’m in line at my favorite deli ordering my honey turkey breast on a kaiser, extra mayo, when Bobby Koch, the owner and master sandwich builder, says, “I’ll tell ya something.” Usually, this heralds one of the worst jokes in the history of humor, but this time it was a real warning. All the prices of wholesale foods were going up. He was being charged two bucks for a head of lettuce, wholesale. So he gave us a warning. “Wait a month and you will see prices rising all over,” he said.
So, I ask the Teeming Millions, have you heard or seen any sign of troubled financial times ahead?
Tonight, on the way home, I stopped at my local Amish food store in Northcentral Ohio, and bought a nice head of lettuce for 59 cents. It was on sale this week. If your guru paid $2. wholesale for a head of lettuce, I definitely would not take his word for what is coming economically.
By the way, you must be living in a very expensive part of PA. Didn’t know there was such a place.
I have yet to hear even a rumor that the California farmers and distributors are going to absorb their increased energy costs “for the good of the economy”. If they don’t, food prices will start to rise pretty soon, and that will affect sales at restaurants…
Squink I do understand about California’s increased cost of energy as relates to electric power. How much this would contribute to the wholesale cost of a head of lettuce would be a matter of conjecture. I would imagine that an increase of 50% in the cost of retail electric power in California might contribute about 5 cents to the wholesale cost of my head of lettuce.
If you can provide some figures that convince me otherwise, I would appreciate.
Well my guru, as you put it, has been part of a family run business that has existed for over 50 years, so I accept him as one that knows what he is talking about in the food business. And as you may have noticed in my OP, the price hikes are coming later not now. Besides, Amish produce is always cheap. It a bad example of the ecomony in general. And since you asked, I live in Philadelphia.
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