Franco Fubini, who founded fruit and vegetables seller Natoora Ltd., is used to charging celebrity chefs a premium price for carefully tended produce, like white peaches from Italy, Sicilian pomegranate and Essex heirloom tomatoes.
But in the past week, sales have evaporated. As shoppers empty supermarket shelves of pasta and dried beans, wholesalers like Natoora, which buys from more than 400 farmers in Europe and the U.S., are struggling to sell food that would normally go to restaurants and hotels.
“The situation is unthinkable,” said Fubini in an interview from New York. “Here in the U.S., the situation is very critical for small farmers. Very critical. It’s incredibly, incredibly challenging.”
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