Rising seas, more intense rainfall and increasing wildfires seem to make the headlines every week but extreme weather is already having broader less-noticed impacts on daily lives — take, for instance, the menu at your favorite South Florida restaurant.
Prices for some foods have risen, doubled, even tripled, which you’ve probably noticed at the grocery store as well. Some ingredients may be in short supply or available only for weeks instead of months.
Climate change isn’t the only reason why food and menu prices have risen, but it is putting increasing pressure on restaurant owners and growers. That was the message from a gathering of farmers and chefs hosted this week by The James Beard Foundation, a non-profit that gives out prestigious culinary awards. Representatives from several favorite South Florida spots — including Joe’s Stone Crab, Maty’s, Rusty Pelican, and Walrus Rodeo — hope the event will help shine a light on how climate change and extreme weather events are increasing costs of growing and serving food. Much of those costs eventually trickle down to customers.
“Consumers need to understand our chefs are not making more money as food prices increase,” Anne McBride, the vice president of programs with the James Beard Foundation said. “Climate change has a direct impact on the supply chain that your favorite chefs depend on.”
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The most telling evidence comes in the form of ingredient shortages and price spikes. McBride said after the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles, for example, a Thai restaurant couldn’t buy cilantro roots, a staple ingredient for their dishes. That’s only one small recent example.
In Florida, Hurricane Helene last year destroyed all of Cedar Key clam farmers’ crops when just the year before the same farmers lost everything from Hurricane Idalia. Georgia pecan farmers also suffered from the wrath of Helene, losing nearly a third of the state’s annual harvest. It’s a global issue. Data from the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs shows that England’s wheat harvest in 2024 had its second worst harvest on record, after record-breaking rain.
Norman Van Aken, a celebrity chef known for his “fusion” food of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African and American flavors, told the Miami Herald that the recent wildfires in California and snow in Florida’s panhandle are the latest signs of climate change being here and now., despite the voices of denial and misinformation.
“Man landing on the moon is real, and the earth is not flat. Climate change is here,” Van Aken said.
Increasing heat also has added to challenges and costs of growing produce in South Florida.
Tiffany Noe, a farmer with the Little River Cooperative nursery in the Redlands, said Miami’s sometimes unpredictable weather means being flexible with what gets planted:
“Temperature fluctuations at the start of the season might mean not having certain crops which requires an open-mindedness to new crops that are climate appropriate, or resilient,” she said.
For example, farmer Tamer Harpke, at Harpke Family Farms, uses grow bags and hydroponics to supply restaurants micro greens, edible flowers and specialty items like finger limes — fruits with little sticky balls that burst when chewed, nicknamed “citrus caviar.”
But Noe said the biggest hurdle local farmers face when trying to expand their operations is the pressure from development spreading across the historic agricultural lands in South Miami-Dade. They aren’t able to outbid town home and apartment development projects to have enough space to meet the supply demand of the restaurant industry.
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“I dare you to pay your mortgage, $250,000 an acre, to plant radishes,” Noe said.
Extreme weather events can wreck physical damage as well, causing restaurant shut downs that can be hard to recover from. Ani Meinhold, chef of Phucyea and Pho Sho, lost electricity for a month after Hurricane Irma which she said caused more than $300,000 in loses.
“The city, government, insurance – they don’t help you,” Meinhold said.
Manny Cid, the county’s senior advisor for economic opportunity who attended the event, said he spends thousands each time it rains for more than a few hours at his own Miami Lakes restaurant.
Miami’s extreme weather events can also be a barrier to getting people in the door, Valerie Chang, Maty’s chef, said.
“As soon as we see the weather we have to brace ourselves for a bad day. In Midtown you have to park basically a mile away and we are not built for torrential rains,” Chang said.
The Foundation said they are calling on Congress to protect the Inflation Reduction Act that supports climate-forward farming that President Donald Trump just paused funding on.
“Legislation is the long term solution,” McBride said. “That helps with getting more small farms, more local farms, more sustainable practices – the type of practices they want to be championing in their restaurants, of the kind of ingredients they want to be serving.”
“That’s why it’s important that chefs share their voice, because farmers are already doing it,” she said, “but lawmakers don’t always go to the farms, whereas they’ll be here for dinner.”
Ashley Miznazi is a climate change reporter for the Miami Herald funded by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners.
