Several factors are influencing food prices today. We hear from food distributor Heartland Produce based in Wisconsin about what’s happening in the food supply chain between the farm and the grocery store shelf.
Heartland Produce purchases produce from around the world and distributes it to grocers, retailers and processors across the Upper Midwest. About half of their business is in Wisconsin, says co-owner and president Ryan Dietz.
He says the trucking strains have eased since last year, but other costs — think fuel, weather and shortages worldwide — are keeping food prices up.
“Growers out in California or Florida … Mexico … are being hit with much higher either labor rates … increased box costs of the materials that they’re packing the products in. They’re seeing increase seed costs. For conventionally grown produce, they’re seeing increased fertilizer costs and/or pest control costs,” Dietz says, adding that these prices get passed on to the consumer.
He says a lot of imported produce gets shipped via shipping containers into the East or West Coasts before getting shipped via trucks and some rail. He says not a lot of produce is shipped via barge.
Weather is an issue across the produce supply chain, especially the growing end. Several growing areas in California don’t have enough access to water, so they aren’t growing certain commodities, Dietz explains. On the spot market side, there are shorter term challenges, such as cold weather, that impacts the growing cycles. He notes there’s a virus that is taking out leaf lettuces on the West Coast.
The other part of Heartland Produce’s business is retail support, such as helping grocers with advertising or in-store demos. Dietz says online grocery shopping isn’t seeing the growth it was during the pandemic as people come back into the stores to shop.
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