What the heck has happened to celery lately ?? It's doubled and even tripled in price locally, and it's suddenly hard to

[eppur_se_muova]

find. Did they deport all the celery pickers (I'm serious) ?

[SheltieLover]

1. No idea. Zucchini & yellow squash, too!

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Don't know

I bought celery at Aldi last Wednesday for 89 cents. Haven't bought zukes green or yellow since the previous week, but they were $1.28 a pound at Wallies. I figured it was all too good to last.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Aldi here had celery hearts last time for $1.49, the cheapest I've seen in weeks. It's $3.25 at Dollar General for

untrimmed celery. I like to use the leaves for flavor and garnish.

[Callalily]

4. Is there a shortage of green onions (scallions).

Twice I went to the store to buy some, and nothing was available.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Not that I've noticed (N. AL) nt

[mwmisses4289]

5. Most likely, idgits goon squads have rounded up

many of the farm workers who work in the fields picking crops. I think i saw something a few days ago where it was saying it may have gone too far with the immigration nonsense, i.e., his wealthy farmer and rancher donors are being affected, and so are the kitchens at his various golf clubs.
As long as it didn't affect him personally, he didn't care. But now it's affecting his image, and he can't have that.

[AltairIV]

6. Green frying peppers......

.......have also vanished, I've been unable to find them for about a month now.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. What are "frying peppers" ? If bell peppers, we've got no shortage. nt

[AltairIV]

16. No Bell peppers are diffirent

Green frying peppers are an elongated, sometimes with curves that are a pale green and a much milder flavor. I use them in a Sausage and pepper dish, with a healthy quantity of sliced yellow onions.

[Goonch]

7. ;-{) Current Cost Of Celery: 2026 Price Guide & Savings Tips

"Celery remains one of the most polarizing yet indispensable vegetables in American kitchens—prized for its crisp texture, subtle saltiness, and unmatched versatility in soups, stocks, salads, and snacks. Yet in 2026, its affordability is no longer guaranteed. Persistent supply chain recalibrations, climate-driven yield volatility, and rising labor and refrigeration costs have reshaped celery’s price landscape—not uniformly, but with striking regional and seasonal nuance. This guide delivers verified, real-time pricing data from USDA market reports, grocery scanner analytics (via NielsenIQ Q1 2026), and direct interviews with produce managers across 12 major metro areas. More importantly, it moves beyond listing prices: it equips you with actionable, field-tested strategies to reduce your celery spend without sacrificing quality or nutrition.
2026 National Celery Pricing Snapshot

As of April 2026, the national average retail price for conventional celery is $2.39 per pound—a 12.7% increase over the 2025 annual average ($2.12/lb) and 28.5% above the 2023 pre-inflation baseline. Organic celery averages $3.82 per pound, reflecting a narrower 5.2% year-over-year rise due to expanded certified acreage in California’s Central Valley and improved cold-chain logistics for smaller farms.

However, national averages mask significant variation. The table below reflects median prices observed during weekly store audits conducted March 1–15, 2026, across 36 high-volume supermarkets (Kroger, Albertsons, Publix, H-E-B, Wegmans, and independent grocers):"............
https://www.alibaba.com/product-insights/current-cost-of-celery-2026-price-guide-savings-tips.html

[highplainsdem]

9. LOL! Alibaba has a brilliant time-traveling AI tool! "As of April 2026, the national average retail price..."

And when I looked at the page, it includes the bot's "explanation" that while the average price of celery is $2.39/lb for bunches of celery, refrigerated pre-cut sticks sell for "$7.99–$9.99/lb. Convenient for snacking, but packaging adds ~23% to final cost." Anyone really think the jump from $2.39 to $7.99,-$9.99 is ~23% - anyone other than the bot that produced that response?

But the bot is inspirational, even though it does't know what month it is, is very weak on math, and probably can't be depended on to get prices right, since bots like this can hallucinate at any point.

Celery’s rising cost isn’t inevitable—it’s a signal to refine how we source, store, and respect this humble vegetable. You don’t need to abandon it, switch to substitutes, or accept inflated prices at checkout. You simply need to align your habits with its natural rhythms and physical properties. Buying in season. Storing with intention. Using every part. Preserving surplus. These aren’t frugal compromises—they’re culinary competencies that deepen flavor, reduce waste, and reclaim household food dollars. In 2026, the most cost-effective celery isn’t the cheapest on the shelf. It’s the bunch you buy with purpose, store with care, and transform completely—stalk, rib, leaf, and core—into nourishment that stretches further than you imagined.

That's hilariously overwritten and typical of bot writing, especially "These aren’t frugal compromises—they’re culinary competencies" with the sentence structure and em dash so often identified in articles as typical of bot writing that people using bots to write for them check the bot-generated text later to try to hide that clue and other clues that they're using AI.

And I was amused by this paragraph

The math is unambiguous: unless you consume celery daily in raw form, whole bunches deliver the highest utility-to-cost ratio—provided you know how to store and utilize them fully. Pre-cut options serve convenience, not economy.

because the bot's math is a mess, and that first sentence makes no sense. Whole bunches of celery deliver the best value, period, and that's even more true if you consume raw celery daily.

The bot contradicts itself here, too - did the family switch to weekly or biweekly purchases?

Switched to weekly bulk purchases (four bunches every other week, stored properly)

I'm not blaming you for the bot's mistakes, Goonch. It's possible you didn't realize that was AI-generated. Shame on Alibaba for not having a notice on the page that it's AI-generated, so people who know that AI hallucinates know what they're dealing with.

And before anyone follows Alibaba's advice on storing celery, I'd recommend checking a more reputable site like Martha Stewart's. https://www.marthastewart.com/how-to-store-celery-8558526
Storing veggies covered in water will cause loss of water-soluble nutrients. https://hopkinsdiabetesinfo.org/how-to-keep-the-nutrients-in-your-veggies/

The best advice re whatever a bot spits out is always to not trust it without checking.

I'd looked at this thread while skimming the Latest threads because I often check threads on grocery prices.

I did NOT expect to find something bot-written from Alibaba here. But there have been lots of news stories about Alibaba's use of AI.

[highplainsdem]

13. I'm not "stalking" you, Goonch. I didn't expect to see a reply from you here. But if you or anyone else

posts a reply from a source known for using AI, and it's immediately obvious there are errors in it, I will point that out, because AI-generated answers shouldn't be trusted.

Anyone who thinks I'm "stalking" you should do a search of your hundreds of recent posts and see how few I've responded to. The last one I responded to was your posting an AI-generated cartoon in the Environment forum in a thread about greenwashing by the oil industry, and I responded to that only because you had used AI for that and the AI industry is itself notorious for greenwashing.

If you think I'm "stalking" you, go look at all your replies compared to the few times I've said anything about any of them.

[Goonch]

14. "your hundreds of recent posts "

If you're not stalking then you must be a fan ;-{)

[highplainsdem]

17. No. I'm not a fan of AI-generated images, which is apparently most of what you post lately.

I've been trying to ignore them, though I know how real artists and liberals like union menbers react to AI "art" on Bluesky, and I've posted general messages about that -
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220895856 - because I think genAI stuff shows contempt for artists and having it posted here looks bad for DU.

I saw your name among the replies to so many threads I looked at and responded to recently, though, that it surprised me. So I did a quick search and saw you'd posted nearly 500 times in the last month, most of the replies apparently AI-generated images, judging by a quick sampling. That's about a tenth of all your posts since 2008, which is why your sudden increase in posting was so noticeable. I wasn't looking for your posts. You'd made them almost unavoidable.

I have no idea if you knew before you posted that quote from Alibaba that it was AI-generated. But it was pretty hard to miss the reference to April 2026 prices, which no one knows yet, and to other errors.

[IbogaProject]

8. Celery gets bleached

So maybe the extra labor or the west coast heatwave are disrupting some sources.

[twodogsbarking]

15. Celery hasn't jumped in our area. Much of the other produce is cattle feed and not cheap.

Eat healthy if you are wealthy.

[Nigrum Cattus]

18. here in Cali produce is up 40%

and we grow most of it !
presume massive increases in other states due to trucking inflation
the republicant's really don't care

[jgo]

19. From searching, here is a detailed link on produce shortages and availability, for instance

https://irp.cdn-website.com/ca7f7ac4/files/uploaded/Market+Report+3.19.26.pdf

[irisblue]

20. Today, ColumbusOh, grocery delivery $2.99/a bunch today