HOT ON heels of pork prices having risen are complaints from vendors that papayas too are now more expensive with the variety suitable for making the Thai salad som tum currently being sold at 18 a kilogramme from seven baht earlier, Amarin TV said today (Jan. 17)
This TV channel’s reporters visited a plantation in Phitsanulok province that grows the Khaek Nuan Sisaket variety of papaya to find out why prices have more than doubled. The owner, Mr. Somsak Thongphansri, told them that he had planted a hundred papaya trees and was waiting to sell the green fruit to papaya salad vendors but unfortunately several got damaged in last year’s floods. He also cannot sell all his fruit as some has to be kept for seedling.
He added that this variety of papaya is good for making salad because of its crispy texture and thus is grown in large numbers.
A visit to the Ban Khaek vegetable market in Mueang district of this province showed that prices of many vegetables have either moved up or down. However where papayas are concerned, depending on the size and how attractive they are, a 10-kilogramme bag of the long variety now costs 120-180 baht while a similar quantity of round ones 100 baht.
Although papaya salad shops and vendors are now opting for the latter to keep costs down, the salad’s taste has changed.
Ms. Petch Chaipreecha, a vegetable vendor here, said it is not known why prices of long papaya have increased but the fruit does pass through a few hands before it reaches her and she is now able to sell a 10-kilogramme bag from 180 baht, up from 70 to 80 baht earlier.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Thai papaya salad (som tum). Photo: Simon Law (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Home Page: A papaya tree. Photo: Dinesh Valke (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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