On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:39:03 -0400, Bob Muncie wrote:

> Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>> "Mr. Nonsense" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Why are farmers market always more expensive than the grocery store?
>>> I'm sure there must be good reasons for this. But I can think of three
>>> reasons why they should be cheaper:
>>>
>>> 1. They have no expensive advertising and marketing costs
>>>
>>> 2. They have no nationwide distribution costs, most of it is local.
>>>
>>> 3. They have no high overhead that is typical of large corporations.
>>> In other words they are not paying fat salaries/benefits to people to
>>> do monkey work.
>>>
>>> I could see they suffer from one disadvantage, no benefit from
>>> economies of scale. I think the key points listed above should more
>>> than make up for that.
>>
>> Some either do the labor of picking themselves or pay a better wage than the
>> big farms using lots of migrants. They tend to hand pick instead of having
>> a huge machine for harvesting. That makes them more selective of actually
>> ripe produce.
>>
>> They are taking relatively small quantities to the market, not shipping
>> truck loads. They have to set up and tear down every market day. What you
>> perceive as cost savings, I see as a cost increase.
>>
>
> I agree, the local farmer's market is close to twice the cost, as the
> local grocery.
>
> Bob

i realize this varies by locality, but the (few) farmers' markets near me
(suburban d.c.) are not cheap. but then i'm not close to the producing
areas.

your pal,
blake