As lime buyers go to stores for their daily shopping, they will find that prices have recently risen dramatically.
Limes are now priced at approximately 79 cents each in San Francisco —and a drop in prices is not in sight.
A number of concurrent factors —citrus disease, rain, and politics in Mexico, as well as the Florida frost and California drought— have created a crisis in lime production that has driven prices up.
“It is expensive! I buy them in less quantities than I used to,” said Rosalinda Pulido, a Mission District resident.
Limes in the Mission District stores typically come from the state of Michoacán, which is Mexico’s largest producer of limes. Over the past year, that area of Mexico has been ravaged by political instability—warring drug cartels and organized crime violence. As a result, the production and delivery of limes has been impacted.
“It was about $18-20 for each case, it [is now] $70,” said Arturo Martinez, the person in charge of the produce store La Loma Produce No. 8, located on 24th and Mission streets.
Meanwhile, Pedro Gil, general manager of his family-owned business Casa Guadalupe, a block down from La Loma, said he is paying over $100 per case.
Cases come in varying sizes, and prices range depending on the size and quality of the limes. Martinez typically purchases cases containing 300 limes, while Gil’s contain 110 to 115 limes.
“I used to buy and sell over 100 cases a week. Now I sell about 15 to 20 cases. Sales have gone down about 75 percent,” said Gil. He says that he continues to stock limes because bars and restaurants will always need to purchase them.
Both Martinez and Gil, each with over 25 years working in the grocery business, stated that they had never seen anything like this 2014 crisis. In 2008, both men mentioned that prices were high for limes, at about $80 per case, but the current situation is simply bizarre to them.
“It’s incredible! Double [the price per case of limes] is too exaggerated!” said Martinez.
Julio Bermejo of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, located in the Richmond District, is asking his bartenders to encourage customers to drink Batanga and Paloma cocktails instead of margaritas because they use less lime juice. The kitchen also now only uses lemons and has gone lime-free.
Joe Hargrave of Tacolicious is also facing tough times. As a compromise, he now offers two margaritas. One is the usual margarita with a $3 price increase and the other is a margarita, which uses a combination of fresh squeezed lime juice, flash pasteurized lime juice, and fresh squeezed lemon juice at the regular price.
Martinez, however, maintains optimistic about the rising prices. “Maybe one more month and prices will go down. Limes will come from different areas (in Mexico),” he said.