Halifax Restaurants Pull Salad From Menus, Skimp On Garnish As Lettuce Prices Quadruple
HALIFAX — The next time you go to a restaurant, don’t be surprised if you have to order soup instead of salad as an appetizer. The price of lettuce has quadrupled since just last week, causing many restaurants to take the staple vegetable off their menus.
In Halifax, popular pub The Old Triangle has temporarily taken its Caesar Salad off the menu. Meanwhile, Bill Pratt, the owner of Chef Inspired Group of Restaurants, says his restaurants are keeping lettuce but he has told his staff to use it conservatively, like when topping a burger.
Before the sudden increase, Pratt says he paid $35 for a case of lettuce; the latest he paid was $142.
“The restaurant industry keeps getting screwed over. We need help to make money because we have all the CEBA loans to pay back; that is looming in 13 months. How are we going save that? It’s bad for restaurants right now,” Pratt said.
At Pratt’s Italian restaurant, Terra Rossa Trattoria in Annapolis Valley, he has chosen to keep the Caesar salad on the menu and just take the loss. He says restaurants can’t jack up the price whenever there is a jump in food costs and that makes the lettuce situation harder to absorb.
“We can’t increase the price every time a meal goes up,” he said. “That would be like a yo-yo menu, it doesn’t make sense. The Caesar is just one appetizer, hopefully they order an entree and a glass of wine with it.”
Even in a time of high food inflation, it seems ridiculous that something as common as lettuce could quadruple overnight. According to Restaurants Canada’s chief operating officer, Kelly Higginson, environmental conditions in California is to blame.
“The largest growing area for lettuce is located in California and there has been a significant heatwave and drought, which has caused most of the crops to be affected by bacteria,” Higginson explained.
“Crops have, almost up to 100 percent, been impacted.”
Higginson said restaurants across the country have been affected and since last week lettuce is being widely removed from ingredient lists.
“Very few are going to keep it on because you just can’t increase the price to the amount that it has gone up,” she said. “We’re seeing major menu changes. Some places are introducing soup instead of salad.”
This is not the first time in recent history there has been a major problem in the lettuce-growing industry. There was a major E. coli outbreak in 2019 that left many questioning whether it was worth still eating the vegetable.
There is one Halifax restaurant unaffected last week by the spike in lettuce prices, despite catering to vegans. That’s because Wild Leek Food & Juice Bar switched off using salad after concerns over E. coli outbreaks.
“Last year, we just decided that we weren’t going to buy any romaine or anything like that because there were too many recalls and we didn’t want to risk it,” said Ocean DeRouchie, Wild Leek’s manager.
“The whole reason there’s a shortage right now is because of a disease. It just seems not the best crop in terms of reliability.”
For salads like a Caesar, Wild Leek uses Kale and mixed spring greens instead. DeRouchie said it works out because kale gives a salad its crunchiness and is more nutritious than lettuce.
Although Wild Leek avoided being hit by the rising cost of lettuce, the restaurant is still getting hit hard by inflation. It has seen staple products like sugar, flour, grain, apples, and oranges go up in price significantly.
“I don’t think that anyone is able to manage this,” said DeRouchie. “We’ve eaten some costs, and we’ve had to pass some of those costs on. We have tried to source out things from new suppliers or just be cost-effective in the things that we’re putting on the menu.”
DeRouchie believes the only way to stop the bleeding at this point, is through government intervention.
We’re coping, but we haven’t managed a full-fledged solution. That’s going to have to come from a level of government. That’s not just on small businesses to come up with solutions to deal with inflation.
“The government needs to step in and say we’re not going to let grocery stores gouge people.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].