SYRACUSE -- A cold weather snap in Florida is impacting your trip to the grocery store in Central New York. Shopper Beverly Derosier has noticed the pricier produce.
Derosier said, "Well, the prices have gone up, it's to be expected because of the weather we've had down south, but I myself I don't like to buy import."
Florida is the only state that produces large amounts of tomatoes in the winter. Because so many crops were lost, what's left costs more. And the same goes for strawberries.
And you're paying more green for those green vegetables. Bob O'Connor is the perishable manager at Wegmans. He says while they've had to raise prices, they've also absorbed some of the costs, so consumers don't have to.
"It's supply and demand," O'Connor said. "If you think about an item like cucumbers, usually you would have cucumbers coming out of Florida and Mexico, without Florida, cucumbers are just coming out of Mexico."
So there is less product to go around. To deal with the shortage at Wendy's, workers are only adding tomatoes if a customer asks for it. And while tomato prices are expected to drop in April when a new crop comes in, grape prices could soon be going up. That's thanks to the earthquake in Chile which destroyed crops and could impact summer fruit prices.
