Soaring costs prompt Sudbury restaurant to remove salads from menu
With soaring grocery prices, and the cost of lettuce at an all-time high, one restaurant in Sudbury has decided to remove salads from its menu for the time being.
Officials with JD Southern Smokehouse on Paris Street in Sudbury said they are losing money on salad sales because of inflation.
"It’s literally triple just in the purchase price and case sizes have gotten smaller," said Jason Heaton, owner of JD Southern Smokehouse.
Heaton said the price has gone up significantly just in the past few months.
"You’re losing money on every salad you send out these days," he said.
"Now you get 36 heads for $102 a case. When I priced this menu out in the summer it was 42 heads for $37.99 a case. So, that’s a huge difference, and the heads of lettuce have gotten smaller. One head of lettuce doesn’t even make one salad."
Restaurants Canada said spiking inflation means restaurants are going to have to adjust quickly.
"Proteins have jumped about 11 per cent so you’re going to see some different proteins being used," said Kelly Higginson, chief operating officer with Restaurants Canada.
"We’re going to see a slimming down of menu items. One thing you’re going to see is the same menu item used throughout … so let’s use a beet for example ... you might have some beet hummus and then you might have some roasted beets to try and bring down the amount of items that kitchens are having to bring in."
Higginson said the menu development process has become much more demanding since the pandemic hit and even more so now with inflation.
"In the inflation market we are in right now, the costs are going to be a significant part of that process, taking that into consideration," she said.
"When we look at something like a salad or a blueberry muffin, there is only so much you can charge in a restaurant for that item until it becomes something the guest just isn’t going to pay for at that point."
As for Heaton, he told CTV News he has a new menu coming out next week that will include soups instead of salads.
He said that come spring, he will consider adding salads back on the menu if the price of lettuce comes down.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Why wasn't the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over Canada?
Critics say the U.S. and Canada had ample time to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it drifted across North America. The alleged surveillance device initially approached North America near Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan 28. According to officials, it crossed into Canadian airspace on Jan. 30, travelling above the Northwest Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan before re-entering the U.S. on Jan 31.

Thieves cut huge hole in Ottawa restaurant wall to get at jewelry store next door
An Ottawa restaurateur says he was shocked to find his restaurant broken into and even more surprised to discover a giant hole in the wall that led to the neighbouring jewelry store.
Rescuers scramble in Turkiye, Syria after quake kills 4,000
Rescue workers and civilians passed chunks of concrete and household goods across mountains of rubble Monday, moving tons of wreckage by hand in a desperate search for survivors trapped by a devastating earthquake.
New details emerge ahead of Trudeau-premiers' health-care meeting
As preparations are underway for the anticipated health-care 'working meeting' between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Canada's premiers on Tuesday, new details are emerging about how the much-anticipated federal-provincial gathering will unfold.
Quebec minister 'surprised' asylum seekers given free bus tickets from New York City
Quebec's immigration minister says she was 'surprised' to learn the City of New York is helping to provide free bus tickets to migrants heading north to claim asylum in Canada.
The world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook Turkiye and Syria on Monday, killing thousands of people. Here is a list of some of the world's deadliest earthquakes since 2000.
Mendicino: foreign-agent registry would need equity lens, could be part of 'tool box'
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says a registry to track foreign agents operating in Canada can only be implemented in lockstep with diverse communities.
Vaccine intake higher among people who knew someone who died of COVID-19: U.S. survey
A U.S. survey found that people who had a personal connection to someone who became ill or died of COVID-19 were more likely to have received at least one shot of the vaccine compared to those who didn’t have any loved ones who had been impacted by the disease.
opinion | Don Martin: Alarms going off over health-care privatization? Such an out-of-touch waste of hot political air
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'