Wet weather worsening green vegetable shortage

Another bout of wet weather has worsened a shortage of green vegetables.

Lettuces are costing as much as seven dollars a head and more rain could hamper new crops, pushing prices up even higher.

Vegetable growers say this is another bout of rain they didn't need.

"It'll be a bit of a set-back because as of yesterday we started harvesting some of the good crops," says Gary Lee, from The Fresh Grower.

Two months of record rainfall destroyed entire fields of crops, and now new crops of spinach and lettuce are being dumped on.

That means higher prices.

Vegetable prices were up 10 percent last month - with a lettuce costing up to seven dollars.

Countdown says "there is less supply available as produce is obviously highly susceptible to weather conditions".

And Foodstuffs explains: "Customers may notice the retail prices of these vegetables are higher than normal, which is unfortunately the nature of meeting demand when growers have limited stock".

"It's tough times at this stage. We'll try to meet the supplies and customers' demands and what they want," Mr Lee says.

And what you want may not be what you get. Even Burger Fuel's mounting a full-on campaign to get us through the lettuce crisis of 2017.

Newshub.