FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Some vendors and farmers on the Treasure Coast are being stifled by the heat and strangled by inflation.
Now, they say it's affecting the number of customers buying their goods: a gut punch that's hard to overcome.
At the Fort Pierce Green Market, Bradley Brown of Brown Family Farms said he's seeing a significant decline in the number of customers coming and spending money at all the markets he works, including the West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens Green Markets.
He said it could be due to the heat or people not wanting to spend money with rising costs and higher rents.
For him, it's terrible timing since he's already losing money due to the effects of heat on his crops.
"The heat does affect us. Right now it's very hard to grow different vegetables right now, leafy greens," Brown said. "It's really hard."
Alex Pearlberg, the owner of Happy Jalapenos, said he typically sees fewer customers during the summer, but said this summer, the waterfront has been abnormally empty.
"It's been a slow summer," Pearlberg said. "I think because of the heat."
For him, it's one more obstacle to pile onto towering inflation.
"The glass jars have gone up in price a lot, shipping costs," Pearlberg said "When we ship them out of our website, it's gone up."
For him, it's not his main source of income, so he'll be OK. But a few tents down, Muthanna Zawahreh and his family business depend on sales.
"Without farmers' markets like these, would your business survive?” asked WPTV reporter Kate Hussey.
"Probably not," Zawahreh, who is dealing with the same issues as the others, said. "Sales have been down. Year by year prices are going a little bit higher.”
According to a 2023 Small Business Owner Report from Bank of America, 79% of small business owners said they're still struggling with the impacts of inflation. The survey said 72% of small business owners are worried about the impact of a possible recession, 67% said they're dealing with rising interest rates and 57% are continuing to face supply chain disruptions.
Meanwhile, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farmers are slowly dropping off across the country.
Since 2020, more than 200,000 farmers have gone out of business. Many have cited the heat and inflation as compounding issues.
"I don't know whether [it's] climate change, what's changing," Brown said.
What won't change, however, is the determination and ability to adapt of these farmers and vendors.
"We're not going to stop," Zawahreh said.
"My other company is going full steam," Pearlberg added.
"It's going to be a brutal summer, but [I'm] trying my best to make it all happen," Brown said.
The public can find all three vendors at the Fort Pierce Green Market, located at 101 Melody Lane in Fort Pierce, every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
