All Issues

• Domestic use of head (largely iceberg) lettuce is a proxy measure for actual consumption. Because annual consumption surveys are prohibitively expensive, indirect estimates of consumption are calculated to capture basic national consumption patterns and trends.

• Per capita (per person) domestic use does not directly measure what individuals eat, but is an estimate of the amount of raw commodity supplied to each person, based on the best available data.

• Analysts rely on domestic use data for such tasks as monitoring the Nation's food supply, studying the nutritional well-being of Americans, interpreting consumption trends among commodity groups, and conducting food demand research.

• Head lettuce includes iceberg, butterhead, Boston, and Bibb lettuces.

• Calculating per capita domestic use for fresh-market vegetables such as head lettuce is straightforward. U.S. imports are added to domestic production to arrive at total supply. U.S. exports are subtracted to yield net domestic use. Domestic use is divided by the July 1 estimate of U.S. population (including military) to arrive at the per-person proxy for consumption.

• Head lettuce accounts for 72 percent of all lettuce produced in the United States. In 2001, U.S. consumers had at their disposal 6.9 billion pounds (24.2 pounds per capita) of head lettuce. This included head lettuce sold in retail stores and various food service outlets such as restaurants and school lunches. It also included various bagged fresh-cut products.

• On average, more than 99 percent of all head lettuce consumed in the United States comes from domestic sources.

U.S. fresh-market head lettuce—Supply, use, and price

Harvested area¹

Per-acre yield¹

Production¹

Imports²

Total supply

Exports²

Domestic use

U.S. population³

Per capita use

Season-average price:

Current dollars¹

Constant 1996 dollars⁴

Share of supply exported

Share of use imported

f=ERS forecast.
¹Source is NASS, USDA. ²Source is Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. ³July 1 estimate, including military population overseas. Source: Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. ⁴Deflated by the GDP implicit price deflator, 1996=100.