Market events

2023 Salinas Valley / Pajaro River flooding

Jan 2023: a documented market event that overlapped the wholesale price windows of 5 tracked ingredients — co-occurrence in time, never an asserted cause.

What happened

A series of atmospheric-river storms in January and March 2023 caused widespread flooding in Monterey County's Salinas Valley and the Pajaro River area, including a Pajaro River levee breach in March 2023. The Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner's Office documented roughly 15,507 acres flooded in January and 8,736 acres in March (over 20,000 acres of farmland impacted for the year), with weather-related agricultural damage estimates ranging from about $330 million in initial surveys to roughly $600 million in later county tallies. Romaine lettuce, celery and broccoli were among the crops reported most affected; leafy-greens food-safety rules require destroying crops exposed to floodwater and testing soil before replanting, and total county lettuce acreage for the year was reported down roughly 3,000 acres from the prior year.

Documented account from our open, cited registry (sources below). Shown as context beside the price record — co-occurrence in time, never an asserted cause.

Affected ingredients

Why these ingredients were exposed

Each affected ingredient's public supply structure — where it comes from and how much it leans on imports. Context that makes the co-occurrence with a documented event legible, never its cause.

  • Romaine lettuceDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~12% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • Iceberg lettuceDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~12% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • CeleryDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~16% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • BroccoliDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~34% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.
  • SpinachDomestically sourced comes almost entirely from domestic production, with little import buffer (reliance ~22% by value). Its exposure runs through domestic production structure, not import origins — a domestic event overlaps its price window.

Reliance is a share of import value, a rough exposure proxy, not a supply-security score. It explains why an ingredient sits in the path of a documented event — not that the event caused any price move. Co-occurrence in time, never a cause.

The detected moves that overlapped

Each figure is a wholesale reference against its own ±26-week normal — a market move, never a delivered price.

  1. Iceberg lettuce — Nov 2022: the wholesale reference ran +215% above its ±26-week normal, held 133 days.

    Co-occurrence in time, not a cause.

What moved together

Co-occurrence, not cause

Romaine lettuce

In Romaine lettuce's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Red leaf lettuce5 of 6 moves
  2. Iceberg lettuce4 of 6 moves
  3. Broccoli3 of 6 moves
  4. Green leaf lettuce3 of 6 moves
  5. Raspberries3 of 6 moves

Iceberg lettuce

In Iceberg lettuce's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Red leaf lettuce5 of 6 moves
  2. Green leaf lettuce4 of 6 moves
  3. Romaine lettuce4 of 6 moves
  4. Butter lettuce3 of 6 moves
  5. Artichoke2 of 6 moves

Celery

In Celery's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Beet2 of 6 moves
  2. Butternut squash2 of 6 moves
  3. Cucumber2 of 6 moves
  4. Eggplant2 of 6 moves
  5. Iceberg lettuce2 of 6 moves

Broccoli

In Broccoli's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Cauliflower3 of 6 moves
  2. Red leaf lettuce3 of 6 moves
  3. Romaine lettuce3 of 6 moves
  4. Apples2 of 6 moves
  5. Asparagus2 of 6 moves

Spinach

In Spinach's 6 notable moves, these ingredients ran the same direction in the same weeks:

  1. Poblano pepper2 of 6 moves
  2. Red leaf lettuce2 of 6 moves
  3. Apples1 of 6 moves
  4. Asparagus1 of 6 moves
  5. Avocado1 of 6 moves

Moving in the same weeks is not one thing causing another — many of these share a growing region, a shipping lane, or an aisle. It is a directed, bounded count: in K of an ingredient's own notable moves, another ran the same way.

Sources

3 sources
Check your own invoice against this reference All market events

Documented events come from our open, cited registry (CC‑BY). Price moves are detected from public history (USDA/BLS/FRED) and shown as co-occurring context, never asserted as the cause. How events are picked.