Meal Planning: Saving At The Farmer’s Market

  By Rae Z. Ryans | August 28, 2012 - 12:27 am | ,

Most farm stands will be coming to a close in the next few months.  Some areas, who have year round growing, are lucky enough to be open year round.  This is the time of tomatoes, corn, apples, watermelons and tons of other fruits and vegetables.  Now is the time to gather the bounty of the farmers and to start preserving.The farm market, or stand, can offer consumers not only the freshest of foods but for usually much less than the supermarket.  You really can save a lot of money buying your produce this way.  If you can purchase a bulk amount, you can feed your freezer or if you have the tools, dry and can your bounty.

For purposes of saving I am looking at this from a monetary point of view.  While I would much rather always support a local a local farm, sometimes money really is the final factor when on a tight budget!

You need to know what it costs.

That’s right folks, you need to know what the produce costs in your local supermarket.  If my local supermarket is offering “Local Grown Peaches” for .69 cents a pound but they are $1.25 at the market stand, well I would buy the supermarket peaches.  However if i needed 10 lbs of peaches and the farmer gave me a discount on culls, well that is a whole other story.

  • If the price is close or your are buying a large quantity ask for a discount.  The worst the farmer can say is “No”.  
  • If you are making jellies or jams, ask about the culls.  Culls are less than perfect, sometimes bruised, or otherwise not pretty looking.  Farmer stands will typically sell these at discount but there is nothing wrong with them other than some rough edges.
  • Come towards the end of the day.  You may miss out on the more popular fruits and vegetables but anything the farmer has left is typically discounted.  If not, then you may always ask.
Make sure you are shopping at a true farm market

Sigh.  You really would think this would be a no brainer but I can not begin to tell you how many, for lack of a better term, yuppie farm markets there are in South Carolina, and our home state of New Jersey.  Sure they sell lots of local produce but the mark-up is insane, sometimes double of what you would pay in the store.  If they are charging more than a supermarket and it isn’t organic produce, than you have stumbled upon a bad farm market.  These farm stands and market are typically peddling local farm goods but because they are a middle man they need to be able to turn a profit, hence the higher prices.  Still i will admit, that towards the season end, they too lower their prices.

Don’t buy what you can’t preserve
Sometimes we have all good intentions of making sauces, jams, jellies, or putting up jars on the season vegetables, and then life happens.  These are not the events I am referring to here. If you don’t have the freezer space, a caner, pressure caner or a way to dry, don’t buy in bulk.  It would be like washing money down the drain.  On the same thought, don’t buy more than you have room to properly store.

About Rae Z. Ryans

Author and owner of Literary Sweet
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  • Linda Kinsman

    Great post and I’m so glad you mentioned researching prices. We went to the farmer’s market recently and I was amazed at how many booths were priced higher than the grocery store!

    • http://www.literarysweet.com/ Heather Capewell

      I’ve heard stories from residents in California and Florida that also say the stands vary in price. One person actually said it was cheaper to buy the oranges they sell roadside to tourists than it is to go to farm stands!