California's Drought Ending?

What does all the snow and rainfall out west mean for California’s desperately awaited freedom and relief from its multi-year drought, and what does that mean for professional culinarians and kitchens across the United States? 

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am by birth a Southern Californian and I’ve been fortunate to live in the State twice in my life. Specifically, I’m an Angelino - born in the suburbs of Los Angeles (Pasadena, home of the Rose Parade and Bowl) in the early 60’s, just miles from Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. Later, during my first college experience studying accounting, I lived in beautiful San Mateo (when the housing prices were affordable) - just south of San Francisco in the Bay Area. Because of those two in-state experiences I've been fortunate to visit most of the Golden Bear state over my life.

For hundreds and hundreds of years, California has been the place to go too. From the first European, the Spanish explorer Cabrillo visiting in 1542, to Sir Francis Drake claiming California for England in 1579, to early colonization by the Spanish and the Catholic Church, and onward through successive migrations of Europeans, Asians, Central and South Americans, and early anglo Americans, California has for centuries been the land of opportunity. The Gold Rush of 1849 certainly helped this perception, and early American railroad building focused on the race to lay rail steel to the ports of Los Angeles and San Francisco. My great great uncle was part of that, leading 400 hard flea-bitten men to build the Sante Fe Railroad from Kansas to Los Angeles in the 1890s.

Beautiful weather, good transportation infrastructures, abundant land, and excellent soil laid the foundations for California to become the leading agriculture state in the 20th Century in the United States, if not the leading agricultural region in the world. This is proven as California led all other US states from 2007 to 2009 in gross agriculture cash receipt values. 

In 2009, California, ranked first nationally in gross agriculture income with $34.8 Billion, led Iowa in second with $21 Billion, was more than double that of Texas, at third with $16.6 Billion, and blew past Nebraska in fourth with $15.3 Billion, and Illinois at fifth with $14.5 Billion. 

Known for Silicon Valley, film-making, gold rushes, high taxes, high rents, horrible traffic, Disneyland and the Golden Gate Bridge, the State of California has the largest economy of any state in the United States. In 2015, California’s gross domestic (state) product was nearly 2.5 Trillion, growing 4.1% over 2014. California, compared to other countries GDP is in the same range as China, Spain, and Italy, according to 2005 figures. 

You would be tempted to think that California agriculture, by far the largest in the nation, would be a huge player in the state’s economy (and by extension it’s politics), but no, this is not the case in the economy. In fact, none of the twenty largest companies in California are in agriculture. Agriculture sales only make up a little more than 2% of California’s gross domestic state product.

So why are we talking about California today? 

Water, my friends. Cool, clear, water. Older chefs and operators might get the reference to the old Western Song “Cool Water”, written in 1936 by Bob Nolan and chosen by members of the Western Writers of America as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time, with its chorus of cool, clear, water.

Even though the song has been covered by tons of other artists like Hank Williams, The Muppets, Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac, and Bob Dylan, the best selling version you’ve likely heard was recorded by The Sons of the Pioneers in 1948, released by RCA Victor Records. 

I digress, though. While water has long been a huge issue in agriculture, especially water rights, and is a major part of Western US history, what we are talking about today is the lack of cool clear water. We’re talking extreme drought and what that means for our nation’s agricultural supply and what that means for you this year in 2017.

If you haven’t heard, the State of California has been in a severe drought since 2009, maybe a bit earlier, impacting food prices across the nation. Out of California’s approximately 100 million acres inside the state boundaries, agriculturalists farm and ranch over 43 million acres, producing about half of all the fruits, vegetables and nuts professional kitchens, food manufacturers and consumers in America use, and this multi-year historic drought has had significant impact on food cost for many Chefs and Restaurateurs, which means restricted supplies in the food supply system. 

With over 81,000 farms and ranches operating in California in 2009, let's take a look at how much of certain common food ingredients California produces for the nation versus all other states:

Artichokes, Dried Plums and Walnuts 99% each and 98% of our Pistachios

Apricots, Kiwis, and Plums 97% each and 96% of all Figs, Nectarines and Olives

Here are a few more common culinary ingredients to consider:

Tomatoes, Celery and Garlic 95% each and 94% of all Broccoli

90% of all Grapes and 89% of all Strawberries and Cauliflower 89%

88% of all Lemons and 85% of all Leaf Lettuces

Dates come in at 82%

79% of all Head Lettuces and Romaine and 76% of all domestic Avocados 

All Peaches - 74% - and 73% of all Honeydew Melons

Finally, a few other common ingredients:

Spinach 71%

Carrots 69% and 59% of all Cantaloupes

I bet most food service workers don’t know those stats. Heck, I know most culinarians don’t know those figures and I also know nearly all consumers don’t know them.

Many of you senior professionals will know that much of this produce is shipped to the rest of the country to big regional produce markets, called “Terminal Markets”, where buyers from all kinds of distributors, small produce companies to big grocery chains, to larger broad-line suppliers like Sysco, US Foods and Performance Food Group, shop from the big shipping companies that buy operating space at the Terminal Markets.

The big Terminal Markets are found in New York City, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Philly, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Boston and Chelsea in Massachusetts, Oakland, Plant City and Tampa in Florida, Maryland and in Chicago. From there, California products are distributed to hundreds of thousands of kitchens across the country, from public schools to colleges, from multi-unit multi-state restaurants to prison kitchens to corporate dining rooms to big and small food production factories, canners and private packers.

To recap, much of the nation’s fruits, vegetables and nuts come from California, are shipped by truck, railroad and airlines to big regional produce markets, where your foodservice and produce distributors buy at wholesale prices to resell to you with their profit markup. 

What this article seeks to provide you, Chefs and Restaurateurs, is a heads up of the weather factors affecting the cost of these items - information that the big multi-unit chains and your suppliers get - so you hopefully can have enough information when you are doing your purchasing that you are in a much better-negotiating position with your sales representatives, and can save some cash!

Back to our California story - the drought. Many Californians think that this drought’s six year period is extreme and severe, and the current situation is being described as the driest period in California’s rainfall record-keeping, with records going back 163 years. According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, originally published in January 2014, “researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years.” By studying tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, they calculate that two droughts in the past 1,000 years “make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.” Thank God that California’s winter this year is pretty damn wet!

KPBS, San Diego State University’s public broadcaster, published a new report on January 19th, 2017, that informs us California “has received nearly a full season’s worth of rain and snow.” “With more than two months left to do, statewide rain and Sierra snow levels are already getting pretty close to 100 percent of the seasonal normal.”

Looking at recent data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, we see that 86 percent of California’s lands were in a state of severe drought or worse last year. This year, thankfully, that percentage has dropped in half, to 44% of California’s landmass being in severe drought or worse. There is still considerable work by Mother Nature left to do for California to formally end its drought, but this year is looking much better for farmers and ranchers.

So, what does this mean for you Chefs and Restaurateurs? I'd love to hear from you what strategies and tactics you are implementing this year in your menus and purchasing, and also query you for your strategies if snowpack and rainfall are less than average next winter.