Restaurants getting creative as they deal with lettuce shortage

People trying to make their own caesar salads and those trying to order them at restaurants are running into roadblocks lately.

A dry season in California and a crop virus in that state have created lettuce shortages across Canada.

As a result, there are open spaces in produce sections and higher costs when a person can find their leafy greens.

Jennifer Henshaw, the director for provincial-government relations for Restaurants Canada in Western Canada, said the situation is posing problems for restaurants as well.

She said chefs are getting creative and looking for alternatives to the regular salad they might have produced before.

“We’re seeing them highlight other ingredients like kale (or) spinach as a replacement. It’s certainly been tricky; they’re either having to increase those prices on their menu, decrease their serving sizes, or substitute for those other options,” said Henshaw.

She said beet salads and kale caesar salads have become popular.

Henshaw said it’s extremely frustrating to have these shortages to deal with.

“We’ve seen it. It’s become increasingly common. This is not the first shortage we’ve seen in the past couple of years (and) it certainly, likely, won’t be the last,” she said.

The market will likely recover heading into winter, according to Henshaw, but it doesn’t look like that will be in the next couple of weeks.