A flyer fastened with tape to the bare carrot display at Hannaford in Concord caught the attention of shoppers passing by Thursday evening.
The grocer asked customers to pardon the shelves’ appearance — empty, without the usual varieties — citing “weather related situations across the industry” as the cause for limited supply.
It’s true: A mid-January freeze and exceptionally hot weather this month in California, from where the majority of the national carrot supply originates, appears to have delayed harvests in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
A California-based company that connects food suppliers with service operators and monitors supply chain trends, called Pro*Act, estimated in a January market report that carrot supplies would be constrained for another six to eight weeks. Early harvests in Bakersfield, Calif., near the southern end of the valley, “produced small carrots, forcing growers to slow picking to let the crop develop,” according to this week’s market report.
“Stronger sizing and better availability are expected in the coming weeks,” it noted further.
Supply shortages resulting from adverse weather conditions aren’t uncommon, according to Rebecca Sideman, professor of horticulture and chair of the Department of Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems at UNH.
The success of wholesale cultivation rests on predictability, especially in temperate climates; farmers know when to plant and when to harvest based on observable weather patterns. Even one anomalous week can disrupt the chain.
Sideman, who worked as a lettuce breeder in Monterey County, Calif., before joining UNH, recalled an uncharacteristically warm week that pushed lettuce growth, producing a glut followed by a complete lack. Three weeks of lettuce were ready at once, and then national shortages followed.
“Usually, these disruptions aren’t for a super long time. Usually, we’re pretty resilient and we recuperate in a few weeks from vegetables in particular,” she said.
Hannaford has no estimate for when the current carrot shortage might ease, according to spokesperson Zach Blanchard.
“Customers will continue to find carrots in our stores, however, there may be times when a specific brand, size or type is unavailable due to reduced inventory from suppliers,” Blanchard said in a statement. “We’re working diligently to find new sources and supply channels to minimize any inconvenience and continue to deliver an outstanding shopping experience.”
It would be difficult to find another wholesale supplier domestically, according to Sideman. The national food system is fragmented for the sake of efficiency, and the majority of wholesale production happens in just a handful of states.
In 2024, California produced 73% of the carrots cultivated in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Vegetable Summary report.
Grocers could look abroad, Sideman said. She’s aware of a glut of leeks, carrots and other root vegetables in European countries like Holland and France, the result of “outstanding” conditions that have brought overproduction challenges of their own.
“In theory, with a global food system, we can turn to alternative sources. But it’s easier said than done,” she said.
The production of most horticultural crops is so concentrated in states like California that it raises concern from Sideman about the independence and resilience of New England’s regional food system.
With plenty of local growers who weren’t impacted by adverse weather changes on the West Coast, the region can be resilient if it chooses to be, she said.
“We’ve settled into really efficient places to produce crops and they’re set up for national distribution. We have a system dialed in, where crops move around and are coming from this part of the country for these weeks,” Sideman said. “It’s dialed in when everything works out from a weather perspective and when we can predict and rely on things. And it’s a good reminder that we don’t know everything and we can’t predict everything.”