The Walmart in Plant City offered imported Mexican strawberries until a recent backlash by members of the Strawberry Growers Association, which is fighting for survival for the second consecutive season against their Mexican competitors.
"Everybody on the (Growers Association) board was appalled and disgusted. It was a complete slap in the face," said Andy McDonald, a Plant City grower and the association president.
Danit Marquardt, a Walmart spokeswoman, said that almost all of the strawberries sold in its Florida stores since late November, the start of the harvest, came from local growers.
"We typically only bring non-Florida berries into Florida when demand increases beyond the supply of local growers," she said in a Thursday email to The Ledger. "Additionally, we have supported our Florida growers this season by sourcing hundreds of thousands of cases of Florida-grown strawberries for Walmart stores in 15 other states."
McDonald and other growers said the slight came at a particularly bad time, when an oversupply of Florida strawberries came on top of a 19 percent increase in Mexican strawberries to the U.S. as of Jan. 26, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. Mexican strawberry imports had set a record in the 2011-12 season.
