My nearby Big Lots had IBC cream soda just yesterday.
Yep, I should have mentioned that - my Kroger always had IBC but it’s such a rip-off ($5 for four little bottles) that I always ignored it. Cans and two liters of either Big K or A&W is what was missing. They didn’t (and still don’t) have the latter at Wal-Mart when I checked the closest two.
Lettuce. Ordinary old standard heads of Iceberg lettuce. Over the Covid era, they’ve gone from an ordinary price of $1.50 or so, up to $1.99, and then $2.50.
But last trip the price had leapt to $3.99! And the heads were super lightweight and airy, weighing less than half they used to. And on top of that, there were only SIX heads in the usually chock full bin! There was a stocker nearby, and I asked her if they just hadn’t had time to bring more out, but nope. Apparently they only got in like 1/4 as many cartons as usual AND all the heads were these miserable little light weights.
What’s up with that? Probably something to do with weather wherever lettuce comes from.
Huh. We haven’t purchased iceberg lettuce in years, preferring the bags of spring greens or heads of Romain.
I’m leary of Romaine. There have just been too many recalls over the past few years.
Seasonally, we buy Romaine from our neighbor’s farm market that they’ve grown. They start them in a greenhouse and the lettuce is delicious. Out of season, Aldi has been a good source. If I ever wind up with e coli or salmonella I might change my mind.
Similarly we don’t buy a lot of head lettuce, but now the sign I saw at a local restaurant makes a lot more sense. It was apologizing for having to raise salad prices due to lettuce shortages.
That also explains the composition of my taco salad yesterday. No iceberg at all, just roughly torn Romaine and butter lettuce. Was delicious, but weird.
Had baby arugula today. Delicious. No idea the cost, my gf shops.
I’m not seeing any real shortages, but prices have gone up a lot. Just today, I saw a rather small rib roast on sale for $55 Canadian. Even a chicken was about $25. A pack of six chicken thighs was $12.
But pork roasts are dirt cheap right now. Did the pigs lose a war to the chickens, or something?
The stores around here are selling lettuce pre-washed, in plastic bins.
The heads of lettuce that they are selling around here are really small and very loose, so perhaps they’re really washing the crap out of them. Or perhaps off of them.
Washing isn’t going to turn a dense head of lettuce into a loose one; at least, not without doing it massive and obvious damage in the process.
Some varieties of lettuce are normally like that. Varieties that do normally have large and dense heads will be smaller and looser if they’re harvested younger. If the farmers are running out of water (a lot of lettuce is grown where it relies mostly on irrigation water), maybe they’re harvesting the crop early – and if that’s the reason, the next thing up may be a full scale shortage; especially if it’s so dry that they don’t plant the next succession. [thorny plans to try to have plenty of lettuce at market next spring . . .]
oh – they might also be harvesting early in the hope of getting the crop before a virus does:
or before it bolts due to excessive heat:
The zucchini at the store today was FOUR DOLLARS a pound! Pretty much double what it was last month.
Carrots update.
A couple of months ago, Marianos stopped stocking Bolthouse 5-lb. bags of carrots and switched to Kroger-brand carrots. Bolthouse carrots have better taste and overall better quality.
Jewel still has very few pre-bagged carrots.
And not just on food! It’s Secret Santa time at work; this year, the cap was raised to $20 for the week. Reasonable, I thought…until I set foot in a store. I missed all the nice Black Friday and such deals (even online) on account of having to put up two live trees. Little things that were ‘stocking stuffers’ in previous years – hand creams, kitchen gadgets, etc. – are too pricey for the week’s budget, so I’ve ended up with bunches of snack and candy items. Some people are ignoring the budget, and some people are just giving $5 gift cards.
After waiting two months our refrigerator part arrived and was installed. The repair guy had visited us three times to reset things while we waited for the part. Whirlpool lost money on the sale.
I saw small heads of iceberg for $4.99 this weekend. And a three-pack of romaine hearts was an outrageous $7.99!
We’ve been used to massive amounts of produce grown with mined water in areas where the rain doesn’t fall, so the growers can take advantage of lots of sunshine for faster growth.
The mined aquifers are running out, and the rain has become less, not more; and also in less reliable patterns – too much will ruin your lettuce as fast as too little.
You can grow lettuce in a windowbox, and/or under a moderate plant light – you’re only growing leaf, not bud or fruit, and don’t need as much light or full spectrum.
Lettuce and other greens can be grown in greenhouses or vertical farms or ever converted shipping containers (the latter with artificial lighting). I have no idea how much they would need to charge for a head of lettuce when it’s produced like this.