I've been living at this location since 2010, with Walmart as my primary grocery store. They had a 4 pack of specialty lettuces off & on for the longest time. When I inquired about them, the manager started stocking more regularly. Then a year or so ago they completely went away. Now they're back! They come from Artisan Lettuce. Their farms are in California, Arizona and Tennessee. They usually include 2 small head-type lettuces and 2 that look as though they would be at home in an aquarium. The package says it contains some combination of Red Gem, Green Gem, Red Oak Leaf, Green Oak Leaf, Red Tango or Green Tango. $2.98 for the 4 pack. It's interesting, I never see any of those varieties sold separately in any store. I'm so happy. I hope they don't disappear again.
If you have an Aldi’s (or maybe Trader Joe, since they are the same company) they carry this 4-pack of variety artisan lettuce. I have bought it from Aldi’s before, but I don’t remember ever seeing it at our Walmart grocery. With all of the “shop American, not Chinese” that most people are doing, we are also trying to do our shopping at Aldi’s instead of Walmart. However, I buy mainly fresh produce, and Bobby buys mainly fresh meats, so we are not getting the processed food shipped here from China .
That's good to know. My nearest Aldi's is 40 miles away, but may be worth the trip if I combine it with other errands (and a need for a decent restaurant meal.) I've never set foot inside of one. Trader Joe's is only 20 miles away. I'm not certain any of them carry more or less foreign food product than the other...that data is really tough to find out.
Those lettuces look cool; I don't think I have seen those in my Walmart. Much of the produce I buy does have those small stickers so you can tell where it came from.
This is what the retail pak looks like: Yeh, those stickers mostly say Grown in Mexico if they're not grown & picked here. Maybe I've seen a few from South America. Gotta love year-round availability.
I'm not certain they taste all that different, but my thinking is that the varied styles, shapes and [especially] colors are likely to contain a range of phytonutrients. When I make my week's worth of salads, the base is always a head of romaine plus either a head of red leaf or a bunch of specialty lettuces such as these. This 4 pak gives me even more nutritional variety.