CONSUMERS WALK ON BY HIGH-PRICED PRODUCE

When record flooding in southern Arizona this winter destroyed or damaged millions of dollars worth of lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli, it seemed certain prices for produce would skyrocket and remain high for several weeks.

Produce prices did rise sharply and stayed high for about a week, but they fell about as fast that they went up. Now they are back to about where they were in mid-February, said a Cape Girardeau produce wholesaler.

The wholesaler, Frank Stinnett of Stinnett Wholesale Produce, said strong consumer resistance throughout the United States to the higher produce prices forced growers in Arizona and California to reduce their wholesale prices.

"Basically, what happened is that just about everybody quit buying lettuce and other produce when it got too high," said Stinnett. "I saw it happen here. The restaurants I service either cut back or quit buying lettuce altogether while the price was so high. I have one restaurant that told me when the price of lettuce dropped below $30 a case, he'd think about buying again."

Tim Lambert, produce manager at the Cape Girardeau Food Giant store, said he noticed a lot of consumer resistance to the higher price for lettuce.

Lambert said lettuce rose from 89 to 99 cents a head in late February to $1.69 a head last weekend. "Customers walked by the produce rack last week, took one look at the price of lettuce, and said, `I really don't need that,' and kept on going," Lambert said. "I only ordered just enough to keep some out on the produce shelves because it wasn't moving very fast at that price."

Since then the price has dropped to $1.19 a head, and Lambert said he expects it to drop below $1, perhaps as soon as this weekend or early next week. Stinnett said that's because lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli built up in grower's warehouses when the demand fell. In order to move inventory out of their overstocked warehouses, Stinnett said the growers had to cut their wholesale prices.

During the last week of February, Stinnett said he was buying Arizona lettuce at $8 a case. During the first week of March, the case price went to $18, then $24, and finally $32 a case by late in the week.

Said Stinnett: "It held at $32 a case for one day, then started falling. By Friday (March 5) it was down to $21, and $10.50 a case on Monday. I've got a truckload of lettuce that left yesterday that cost me $8.90 a case."

Stinnett said prices could go up again, but not as much as before. "The bottom line is that a lot of lettuce was destroyed or badly damaged by the floods in southern Arizona," he said. "Most of the fields of lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli are covered by several feet of water. Sooner or later those losses will show up in the wholesale produce markets. When that happens you can expect to see some increase in retail prices."

But produce brokers don't expect any dramatic increases anytime soon. Bengy Proffer of Proffer Wholesale Produce in Flat River said he sees at the most only a $3 to $4 dollar fluctuation in current prices for lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli.

Proffer said the latest California lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli crops will mature late this month or in early April. As this crop is picked and placed in the produce pipeline, it should keep retail prices from rising again, he said.

"If the supplies we're getting now can drag on through the end of the month, and the California crop can pump in new supplies, I don't see any of the price increases like we had earlier this month," said Stinnett.

There is one exception to all of this, and that's celery. Stinnett said floodwaters in Arizona not only destroyed most of the celery crop but washed out new fields that had just been reseeded with celery. He said it may be late April or May before a new celery crop is harvested in that area.

With the exception of celery, wholesalers said supplies of other produce such as winter tomatoes, cabbage, oranges and onions should remain in good supply and at normal prices.