THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 27, 1995 TAG: 9503250246
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Talk Of The Town
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Not long ago, you could drive out of almost any large American city and find truck farms and orchards lining country roads. Back then, most produce was locally grown. Even the word truck meant vegetables rather than something on wheels.
Today, Hampton Roads' 2,235 restaurants and snack bars and 875 food stores truck in most produce from distant points, especially California. But recent rains flooded crops. In California's Salinas Valley, source of half the nation's lettuce, high water destroyed more than $360 million worth of crops.
``Prices have skyrocketed,'' said Eric East, inside sales rep at the Norfolk wholesaler Let-Us-Produce. ``The demand is still there for it, but the product isn't there to be harvested.''
Broccoli, $17 for 14 bunches pre-flood, cost $30 last week; 24 lettuce heads, $14 pre-flood, cost $25 last week. East forecast $30 to $35 lettuce.
``Some of the restaurants are cutting back or substituting yellow squash for zucchini,'' East said. Some even cook cucumbers instead of zucchini, or bargain for Arizona produce.
``Prices will be going back to normal,'' predicted Kristina Barrios, a Saville Foods sales rep in Newport News. ``There'll be a new crop coming in in California in mid-April.''
Virginia earned a B-minus for its telecommunications policies. That's the report card by a free-marketeering think tank in Washington, Citizens for a Sound Economy.
The group praised Virginia lawmakers. A new law authorizes state regulators to open the local-phone business to competition as early as next year. It criticized the State Corporation Commission for not allowing competition in short-haul long-distance calling, however.
Hurricanes usually avoid Hampton Roads. That's what you hear. Something about Cape Hatteras deflecting their course.
But the tone was markedly different last week at the Virginia Hurricane Summit in the Omni Waterside Hotel in Norfolk.
``We need to start respecting these storms and the fact that they are unpredictable,'' said Jim Talbot, Norfolk's deputy emergency services coordinator.
Jack Williamson, Newport News' emergency services coordinator, warned stalled traffic could pose major problems. He said the area's population has outgrown the capacity of its roads. To reduce traffic jams, officials said the area could be evacuated in stages. by CNB