Cost Comparison of Farmers Market vs Discount Food Stores
Are Farmers Markets Really More Expensive Than Grocery Stores?
An informal cost comparison of Farmers Market, Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe’s items on Feb. 3, 2021
This is not intended to be an official “report” or peer reviewed study. It is simply data collected from one person who took pictures of prices at the different venues.
There is an idea we hear repeated that food at the farmers market is too expensive. I had done a price comparison years ago, but it has been awhile, so I did some research to find out as it concerns me and has not been my experience, but I wanted to know the truth.
As expected, market food is definitely much more expensive when it comes to all animal products. People simply do not understand why. Small farmers do not get the subsidies and supports that large Confined Animal Feeing Operation (CAFOs) get. The cost at Farmers Markets reflects the True Cost of food and food grown in the right ways that do not harm the planet and that treat animals well.
The costs at the grocery stores are reflective of a system that is cruel to animals and toxic to the planet, the water and the people who live around them, not to mention the quality of the food and its impact on human health. Those costs are not accounted for in the pricing, nor are the government support systems which are paid for by tax payers as hidden external costs (“Externalities”). The companies get to skate on their environmental impacts, health impacts and we, the people, get to pay for their hidden costs.
And…we understand that when one is on a budget, one simply cannot afford to pay $7 a pound for ground beef. The situation is such that all may be paying that in grocery stores in the near future, but we will not address that point for now. We, as a culture, will soon face difficult decisions about how we eat and my guess is that we will all have to eat less meat due to costs, if nothing else. But it is true that, today, animal products cost much more (in some cases double the cost) at markets than at Grocery Outlet (GO) or Trader Joe’s (TJ).
Other products are a mixed situation depending on the vendor.
Nuts- Organically grown walnuts sell for $8 a pound at Kaki Family Farms. Other booths are more or less. They sell at $8.99 for 12oz at Trader Joe’s. Organic almonds are not that far off of store prices at some market booths, more at others. If you account for taste (science is in the early stages of learning how taste and nutritional value interface).
There is no way to compare market nuts with store bought. I could not even find unprocessed/unflavored nuts at Grocery Outlet. Also…all the food at GO is almost out of date.
Rice- the rice prices are the same at the market as they are at the stores that sell those brands (neither are available at TJs or GO).
Organic mandarins sell for $3.99 for two pounds at Grocery Outlet. Conventional mandarins at Trader Joes are 2lb for $2.99. Depending on the booth at market, they sell for $2 or $2.50 a pound or you can get an organically grown 3 pound bag for $5, making them comparable to the conventional ones at TJs and less than the Cuties* at Grocery Outlet.
Parsley- a 2oz bunch costs $1.19 at Trader Joe’s. Zong Moua’s booth at the market is at least three times the size for $2.
Butternut squash- $1.99 per pound at Grocery Outlet, $2.49 for a squash a little over a pound at TJs. They are $2 a pound at market at most of the booths.
Kale- $.99 for a small, shriveled bunch at Grocery Outlet, $2 a bunch for a huge amount of full, vibrant kale at market
Leeks- $2.49 a small bunch at GO, $2 for a huge, healthy bunch at the market.
Lettuce varies- Spring mix from a company I know is cheating on their organic certification and has been kicked off rental farms due to egregious soil mismanagement, is $2.99 for 5oz at GO. At market- Farmelot is expensive at $3.50 for 4oz. Gold Root has 5 oz bags at $3 for healthy, fresh organic greens. Other booths have them at $3 for 8oz.
Sprouts are usually upwards of $4-6 in stores for old, depleted looking sprouts. A similarly sized plastic container is $3 at the Gold Root Farm or a packed bag of fresh sprouts is $5 at the Chico Rice booth.
Fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, radishes were all comparably priced.
Honey was more expensive at the organic, pure honey booth I went to at market. But/and given the honey controversies and one never knowing what’s really in the bottles, I don’t think it is a fair comparison. Almond butter, while amazingly more tasteful than anything at any conventional grocery store was more expensive at market, but not much more at the Alvarado booth.
Artisanal bread is more expensive than conventional bread, but, like the rice, not more expensive than other small batch bread at stores (not available in GO or TJs).
I can go on and on, but you get the picture. Basically, produce is equal to or cheaper for superior quality, but animal products and artisan, value added foods are more expensive because the small producers don’t have the advantage of industrial equipment and machine labor.
Broccoli picture here, maybe 200 pixels but can enlarge on another page to see the date. The truth is that food at the markets is not more expensive than at the store if you are buying whole, unprocessed produce. Plus they have the advantage of being fresh. New science is revealing that nutritional value starts to degrade the minute food is harvested. The plastic wrapped broccoli at TJs was priced at roughly $2 a pound and was dated at two weeks old.** The food at both TJs and Grocery Outlet looks old, depleted, sick and tired compared to the market produce.
Don’t stressed people deserve healthy food? And how do we measure value? Is it just line item cost across the board, or do we include other factors? Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food states that in Italy they spend 19% of their income on food, 9% on healthcare. Those numbers are reversed in the U.S.
We believe it’s time to consider other factors regarding the “value” of our food. We encourage folks to remember the power they wield by voting for the world they want to live in with every bite they take. Please take a closer look…our farmers grow us amazing food right here that is comparable in price and blows grocery store food out of the park with flavor and freshness. Stop the fake news! When it comes to produce there is no better value or taste than buying your food at the Famers Market.
*Re: other considerations between “Cuties” and farmers market mandarins. This not an isolated case but reflective of the food system as it is now.
The ones at market are grown by a Mexican family that lives here and farms using organic practices. The ones at Grocery Outlet are the “Cuties” brand, owned and operated by the Resnicks who live in LA but have tens of thousands of acres they farm in Kern County. They are some of the main players in CA’s water wars. They grow almonds there, which require 7 times more water than if they were grown up here, taxing the environment. They bought a winery in San Luis Obispo and immediately ruined the land. They have been implicated in increased trade wars with Iran over their pistachios. And they conduct their Fiji Water business quite shadily. All of this can be easily found doing internet queries, reported on by credible news sources.
The point being that we can either choose to support large monocrop businesses that pollute and are unjust in their business dealings or we can support a local farmer while paying less money. In addition, as a study on the Sacramento Growing Region found “… for every dollar of sales, Sacramento Region direct marketers are generating twice as much economic activity within the region, as compared to producers who are not involved in direct marketing.”
http://sfp.ucdavis.edu/files/238053.pdf
** There are increasing studies that show that the longer food sits after harvest, the more nutritional value is lost.
https://news.psu.edu/story/211232/2005/03/18/storage-time-and-temperature-effects-nutrients-spinach