Adverse weather conditions in states like Florida and Arizona and in Mexico have impacted on the food supply, and now a nationwide food shortage is hitting consumers hard financially. In Louisville, Kentucky, consumers are shocked by sky-high prices.
"That can't be $3.49," said Arthur Edison, as he looked at a tomato in the produce section at the ValuMarket in Mid-City mall. "I buy those for .99 cents a pound usually."
The sticker shock comes as local grocery stores raise prices on fruits and vegetables and find some produce impossible to stock.
And it's not just the local grocer. Empty spaces prove troublesome for wholesalers like Creation Gardens. The company supplies fruits and vegetables to 3,000 restaurants from Kentucky to Indiana and Ohio to Tennessee.
"Major shortages from every region that we try to buy from," said Steven Turnier, a purchaser from Creation Gardens. In Yuma, Arizona, Monday, there was no harvest -- just ice on the vine.
"Broccoli, cauliflower, celery -- it's just not growing," said Turnier. "It's so cold out there."
"Florida...got major, major rains," he added. "And it wiped out tomato crops, cucumber, zucchini, squash...as a result, almost A to Z, there is nothing out there that is particularly good quality."
With an El-Nino weather pattern bringing unusual extremes to the forecast, we're told high prices and low product could last much of the winter season.
