Farmer’s Market v. Grocery Store—October Edition

I repeated my June experiment pitting the farmer’s market against the grocery store for produce prices. Why? Because, as a scientist, I feel the more data, the better.  The results really knocked my socks off because the farmer’s markets dominated the grocery store…both on quality and price!

I loosely followed the advice of the farmer who sold me Shishito peppers, and simply sautéed them with 1/2 slice of bacon and avocado oil until slightly brown.  A squeeze of lime and sprinkle of salt, and we had delicious but fairly healthy poppers for dinner!

There are many advantages to being a trained scientist with lots of experience.  In particular, I appreciate how it allows me to see the world in a way that is very clear and ordered.  However, there are disadvantages too.  If I’m unsure that I have the full picture, I’m driven to investigate it until I get it all in view.  I can’t just let it go.  An example?  My June farmer’s market story.

As a scientist, I also don’t tend to believe things without supporting evidence.  Lots of supporting evidence.  I’m always holding on very lightly to ideas and conclusions that I come to through the support of only a few facts.  If the winds of new information come along and whip the paper of understanding out of my hand, I don’t run after it, I just let it go and rewrite my ideas anew with a revised perspective.

Data…always more data

Here’s the problem with my July story.  Yes, I collected produce price data from several markets (4) and for many different types of produce (23).  But this investigation reflects only one person’s experience for one day.  The question I have is this: was the result (that the farmer’s markets win for comparable quality produce and the grocery store wins for the cheapest possible produce) just a fluke?  Is it possible that my numbers and thus my conclusions about the affordability of farmer’s market produce don’t reflect the usual relationships?  It was, after all, very early in the season here in Colorado.

Typical famer’s market scene in the fall: pumpkins!  These are from Musso Farms in Pueblo and sold by “Joe Tomato”.  I bought one of the red-orange Cinderella pumpkins.

A first-step solution?  Let’s try it again!  And what better time than to pick the opposite season: harvest time.  As opposed to spring and early summer, when farmers are just scrounging the earliest, scant produce out of their fields, fall is a time of produce abundance.  Also, the produce that is available is quite a bit different than in the spring (especially for fruits, tomatoes and squashes).  This time, I headed to the two markets from my June trip that had the most produce: Old Colorado City Farmer’s Market and the Colorado Farm & Art Market at the Margarita.  

A great variety of produce

First I have to say whoa.  I knew that much more produce would be available at the markets during the fall. But after taking the survey, I was astounded by the variety of produce on my list.  Here it is:

Apples

Arugula

Green beans

Pinto beans

Beets (no greens)

Beets with greens

Cabbage

Cantaloupe

Carrots

Cilantro

Chard

Collard Greens

Corn

Pickling cucumbers

Slicing cucumbers

Dill

Eggplant

Eggs

Garlic

Kale

Leeks

Mint

Red onion

Yellow onion

White onion

Peaches

Pears

Green peppers

Red peppers

Poblanos

Pueblo Big Jim peppers

Microgreens

Jalapeno

Parsley

Plums

Gold potatoes

Red potatoes

Pumpkin

Radish

Butternut squash

Spaghetti Squash

Tomatoes

Watermelon

Zucchini

Aside from the overall variety of produce you can find at a fall farmer's market, I love the special varieties of produce available within one species.  Jonathan apples are my favorite, and I've only ever seen them around here at the farmer's market.

Not even on this list are basil, canary melon, gypsy peppers, shishito peppers and turnip greens, particular fruits and vegetables that I could not find at the grocery stores I visited.  Again, I collected price data from both King Sooper’s and Whole Foods grocery stores and I collected two sets: prices for comparable quality produce and prices for cheapest produce I could find.  At the grocery store, I found 83% of the farmer’s market items in organic versions and 27% from local sources.

The results are way more surprising to me than my initial results in June—I guess I expected to find that the price differences would be similar to June, though maybe a bit better for the farmer’s market in the fall.  After all, as produce variety and quantities grow from spring to fall, it is logical that your savings might too.  You know, supply and demand and all that economics stuff.

Comparable Quality

For comparable quality (either organic, local or both), buying a bit of everything at the farmer’s market would have saved me a whopping 56% over the grocery store.  Wow!  71% of the items were cheaper at the farmer’s market.  What cost $147 at the farmer’s market would have cost $230 at the grocery store (a savings of $83). 

Cheapest Available

Conversely, for lowest cost produce at the grocery store (of which 63% percent was conventional and not local), I would have only saved a measly 2% or $3 on that $147 farmer’s market cart.  38% of the items were still cheaper at the farmer’s market.  I certainly did not expect these kinds of differences.  A 2% difference is like saving $2 on a $100 pair of running shoes.  Not exactly motivating—that would not get me to the athletic store for their sale.  Plus, the farmer’s market produce is likely to save you more money in the following weeks as it resists spoilage for longer (due to its quality and freshness).  Typical grocery store produce I buy lasts 1-2 weeks in my refrigerator, but farmer’s market produce generally lasts 2-3 weeks, so that forgotten tomato in the bottom right corner of my vegetable drawer is not rotten when I find it.

As a gauge on how you might save or not over the whole summer, I added in prices from one more shopping trip I did in August (I didn’t extensively track prices that time, just collected info on comparable prices for what I bought), and found that for all three shopping trips together, in comparable quality, I would save 42% at the farmer’s market, and for cheapest possible, I would pay an extra 4% (about $10).

An even better result for SNAP participants

Hanagan Farms had a great variety of low cost produce at the Old Colorado City farmer's market, including these beautiful Canary melons.

I’d like to highlight a side note here: let’s talk about SNAP and farmer’s markets.  SNAP is the government program that used to be called “food stamps”.  It helps low-income or unemployed Americans stay alive by subsidizing their food budget.  I had a great conversation with Chuck from Hanagan Farms about his produce and what I was doing with my notebook, scribbling down all his produce prices.  He mentioned that he is in a program wherein SNAP participants can DOUBLE their buying power when they buy produce from him.  It’s called the Double-up Colorado program  and the funding is from LiveWell Colorado as well as many other participating foundations, associations and government agencies.  Every time a participant buys $20 worth of SNAP-eligible items, they get another $20 to spend on fruits and vegetables at participating farmer’s markets.

So if you have a really crushing food budget situation in Colorado, you could be saving upwards of 75% on organic, local produce by buying at the farmer’s market.  With a quick web search I easily found that Arizona, Oklahoma and Michigan have similar programs, and probably more states do too.  We farmer’s market shoppers should be encouraging this…why?  It’s a locally-based subsidy that favors small farmers, organic and sustainable farmers, and fruit & vegetable growers, all factions of the food system that often struggle to survive, but provide vibrancy within our food landscape.

What can we take home from all this now?

Of course, I still have questions and doubts about my data—the silly scientist can never let things go entirely.  If I were to go further, I would want to know how this comparison fares across several years.  I would also want to do the experiment in several different cities in different parts of the nation to establish a universal lesson.  However, even given the limitations of this investigation, I feel that especially in the fall, I (and everyone who can) should visit the farmer’s markets with priority and buy produce with wild abandon!  Isn’t it great when knowledge recommends what you want to do anyway?