My favorite sport has always been Major League Baseball. My favorite team is the New York Yankees, but they can really frustrate me at times, especially during a long losing streak. Sometimes I just want to give up on them, but after staying away for a few games, I’m back supporting the team again.

The Romaine lettuce recall that occurred this past November was very frustrating, just like my Yankees, occurring at the busiest sales period for produce — the Thanksgiving holiday.

The recall makes us wonder whether consumers will lose confidence in Romaine lettuce and eventually give up buying it completely. The bitter pill of this dilemma is how frustrating it has been for the food chain involving growers, suppliers and retailers. The unfortunate part of this crisis lies within the horrendous financial losses so many companies experienced.

Everyone certainly understands that the safety of people is a priority. At the same time, the massive amount of Romaine lettuce that has been discarded is a tremendous waste of food. Just think about all the product that had to be dumped in the United States and Canada that farmers put their hard work into growing and managing. It becomes quite costly.

Romaine lettuce experienced two recalls in 2018 — first in April and again in November. Consumers were confused with the first recall, but repurchased Romaine lettuce a few weeks afterward.

But the November recall was spread across the country by means of newspapers, TV, social media and word of mouth. This time the punch hurt a little bit more. Sales of other lettuce varieties were impaired due to a ripple effect. Some consumers just refrained from buying any lettuce products during the critical holiday period.

I asked two retailers what impact the recall had on their business. Jay Schneider, produce director for Acme Markets in Malvern, PA, told me, “The dollar loss was tremendous as it was for the entire industry. Some customers returned the lettuce, but my guess is many just threw it away. The time, labor and energy spent on handling and scanning the amounts into our recall systems took up many valuable hours. However, the safety of the customers is a No. 1 priority. In moving forward, we still have to see how much we will continue to lose with consumer confidence in the coming months.”

Jeff Tomassetti, produce director for Buehler’s in Wooster, OH, added, “Timing could not have been worse when they released the recall from the CDC. We had loaded up our orders for the Thanksgiving holiday and booked more-than-normal amounts. We had to throw all of that Romaine away. We experienced a tremendous amount of dollar loss from the Romaine that was discarded along with customer returns and even local product. Our salad sales dropped considerably. This was a very frustrating situation for all involved. We’re still going to stock and promote Romaine lettuce for our customers since being cleared by the CDC.”

Let’s not give up on Romaine lettuce. We’ve overcome industry setbacks before and fixed the problems.

One big step that must be taken is increased communication with consumers to win back their confidence. This can be accomplished with messaging, signage and labeling all designed to get Romaine lettuce back into their homes. This undertaking cannot be left up to only retailers. Produce managers have to face customers all day long trying to win back their trust in purchasing Romaine lettuce again. They need support from the rest of the industry in accomplishing it.

Several produce managers told me they have restocked Romaine lettuce and their customers are starting to buy it again. It seems that the rebuilding has slowly begun.