Prices & the approaching strawberry season!

So I have been neglecting this a little bit and I appologize for that. I have had several topics I wanted to post about, but I just never got around to actually sumbiting them! Now that spring break is coming up next week, perhaps I'll have more free time to experiment with strawberries...

If you haven't noticed, over the past few months I have been trying to do strawberry themed recipes. Obviously these recipes include fresh strawberries, so this led me to become more aware of the prices of strawberries.

The actual strawberry season is late May into June. This means we are in short supply of these berries throughout the winter months, and rely on imports from places such as Mexico for our "fresh" strawberries. Now that we're almost half way through March there has been a destinctive drop in prices, as well as brands that the supermarkets are putting on display.

For my strawberry cupcakes in February, I went to a local Wal-Mart to purchase strawberries, just because I figured they would be cheapest (and because I had other random shopping to do). I walked in expecting to be paying a high price for a carton of strawberries, but to my surprise they were only $4.48. I was plenty happy with this price because it was the week of Valentines Day, as well as the middle of a winter month.

Going on a side note off of the prices of Valentine's Day strawberries, Dr. Cohen also sent me a link to another blog (http://www.chow.com/grinder/4746) that talked about a certain strawberry from Japan that we being auctioned off at a ridiculous price. For a box of 7-12 berries, it cost $45. That definitiley made my $4.48 look like a steal!

As the weeks went on I was in and out of supermarkets and grocery stores for different reasons (now with my eyes looking at price tags of the produce section). One week a lot of the fresh fruits were on sale, and I saw that cartons of strawberries were on sale for 2/$4.00 or $2each. I thought this was a crazy sale and imediatley wished that I could think of something to make with these. Sadly I was in a rush to get back to school and left the sale (although my mom did go back later).

For my past recipe I did make a return trip to the same grocery store and was saddened to see the $2 sale was over. Even though the prices did go back up, it was not significant. A carton of strawberries is now aroung $2.50. So, over a period of about four weeks, the prices of strawberries dropped a little over $2. This price fluctuation amazed me.

Now, I would also like to note where these strawberries were coming from. The original box I bought at $4.48, was imported from a farm in Mexico. This same farm was the supplier during the $2 sale. I would have to assume this was their last import and wanted to make room for their new batch. Last week when I went and got my $2.50 strawberries, they were now from a different farm that was located in Florida. I have deducted that this significant, and rapid, decrease in price is from cuting back on traveling distance.

What does all this mean? Well, it does mean that the distance they must travel increases the price...but it also means that it's almost strawberry season!!! So now I'm in "summer mode" and thinking of all the strawberry juices and fruit salads I can make. Either way start preparing for lower costing fruits, and I will keep you updated on the decline in prices of strawberries!