There’s a good reason for the increased pricing you notice in the supermarket’s fresh produce area. It’s due to rising gasoline prices, which are 40% more than a year earlier, as well as a statewide lack of truck drivers, among other issues.
Fruit and vegetable importer Jay Betancourt tells Yahoo Finance that “the demand for trucks is so great that there aren’t enough trucks to meet the needs.”
According to the Philadelphia-based produce industry expert, transporting a whole truckload of fresh produce from southern Texas to the Northeast costs somewhere between $6,000 and $6,200 this time of year.
“Right now, due to the high cost of fuel and the scarcity of drivers, we’re paying anything from $9,100 to $9,300 for that same truck,” he explained.
Customers all around the county are complaining about the higher prices, according to the importer.
“They’re baulking every single day,” he said. “The production [of food] does not come to a halt. However, the quantity of business lost by the sector as a result of increased prices is staggering.”
Fresh items, unlike processed or canned commodities, have a short shelf life, and unsold fruits and vegetables represent losses.
“Sell it or smell it,” Betancourt said, adding that clients buy what they know they’ll need on any given day.
“You don’t want to take a chance, and you don’t want to see a shrink,” Betancourt explained. Fresh produce is like to “sitting on a time bomb that will blow the longer you sit on it.” And when it blows up, it’ll just end up in the trash.”
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