Aftermath of romaine lettuce recall in the valley

The current demand for romaine lettuce is at a low. Consumers across the country are afraid of the leafy green following the most recent E. coli outbreak.

Jack Vessey is a fourth-generation grower. Like many other romaine lettuce growers in the desert southwest, he is still recovering from the romaine recall last fall.

According to the Imperial County Crops and Livestock report, romaine lettuce brought in $50 million in gross value in 2017.

But growers were hit with a recall in the spring of 2018 and tragedy struck again later that fall.

Vessey said, ” A lot of the companies in this business were finally getting a sigh of relief after a tough summer and then, this happens. We kind of saw we’re getting down the yellow brick road. It just crashed and broke right in front of us.”

Vessey stressed that consumer demand has gone down for romaine lettuce.

“Currently, I mean we kind of have what we call a market decline. There’s still a certain percentage of U.S. population that may not consume romaine because the scares of what they’ve heard from the CDC, FDA over the last six to twelve months,” said Vessey.

Millions of dollars that could’ve helped the local economy were lost due to the recall.

Vessey recalled, “We dumped thousands of cartons back in the field we were harvesting that day when the announcement was made. We stopped a crew. People didn’t work for two weeks.”

Even with the recall lifted, growers are still having a hard time making ends meet.

Vessey said, “We’re struggling to get what we call half of our growing cost back. You know say, it cost you $10 a box to cover all your cost and they’re selling it at $8 today. So every box going out, we’re losing $2 a box on our growing cost.”

Growers are working together to ensure consumers that the food they put on your table is safe.

“From what’s next to our ranches. What’s in the water. We’re constantly water testing. We’re constantly surveying the ground. From a pre-planned assessment, we look at the ground before we plan the crop. We look at everything before we harvest the crop,” Vessey added.

Vessey hopes the demand for romaine lettuce will go up as growers continue to make adjustments.