IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/jlofdr/274599.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Local Produce Really More Expensive? A Comparison of Direct Market and Conventional Grocery Produce Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Salisbury, Karli
  • Curtis, Kynda
  • Pozo, Veronica
  • Durward, Carrie

Abstract

As fresh produce growers look to expand their markets to include lower-income consumers, they must overcome consumer perceptions that direct markets, such as farmers’ markets, are expensive and elitist. The absence of pricing data makes comparisons very difficult, which perpetuates misconceptions. This study uses fresh produce pricing data collected at farmers’ markets and grocery stores in northern Utah in Summer 2016 to illustrate actual pricing differences across outlets. Results show that, on average, farmers’ markets are more expensive, but location and produce item greatly influence price, especially for organics. Locally owned grocery stores were less expensive than national brands.

Suggested Citation

  • Salisbury, Karli & Curtis, Kynda & Pozo, Veronica & Durward, Carrie, 2018. "Is Local Produce Really More Expensive? A Comparison of Direct Market and Conventional Grocery Produce Pricing," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 49(1), March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:jlofdr:274599
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.274599
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/274599/files/JFDR_49.1_4_Curtis.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.274599?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carlson, Andrea & Frazao, Elizabeth, 2012. "Are Healthy Foods Really More Expensive? It Depends on How You Measure the Price," Economic Information Bulletin 142357, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Volpe & Edward C Jaenicke & Lauren Chenarides, 2018. "Store Formats, Market Structure, and Consumers’ Food Shopping Decisions," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 672-694, December.
    2. Adam Drewnowski & Nicole Darmon & Pablo Monsivais, 2021. "Affordable Nutrient Density: Toward Economic Indicators of Sustainable Healthy Diets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-9, August.
    3. Katare, Bhagyashree & Binkley, James K. & Chen, Kaiyan, 2021. "Nutrition and diet quality of food at home by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) status," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    4. Rafael Moreira Claro & Vargas Hernandez & Joel Alberto & Satoru Shimokawa & Euna Han & Sharada Keats & Steve Wiggins, 2015. "The Rising Cost of a Healthy Diet – Changing Relative prices of Foods in High- Income and Emerging Economies," Working Papers id:7250, eSocialSciences.
    5. Nicholas R V Jones & Annalijn I Conklin & Marc Suhrcke & Pablo Monsivais, 2014. "The Growing Price Gap between More and Less Healthy Foods: Analysis of a Novel Longitudinal UK Dataset," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-7, October.
    6. Helmut Schröder & Santiago F Gomez & Lourdes Ribas-Barba & Carmen Pérez-Rodrigo & Rowaedh Ahmed Bawaked & Montserrat Fíto & Lluis Serra-Majem, 2016. "Monetary Diet Cost, Diet Quality, and Parental Socioeconomic Status in Spanish Youth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-13, September.
    7. Kristen Cooksey-Stowers & Marlene B. Schwartz & Kelly D. Brownell, 2017. "Food Swamps Predict Obesity Rates Better Than Food Deserts in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, November.
    8. Young, Jeffrey S. & Binkley, James K., 2020. "Low Income and Access to Healthy Food: The Case of Milk," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304539, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Xi He & Rigoberto A. Lopez & Rebecca Boehm, 2020. "Medicaid expansion and non‐alcoholic beverage choices by low‐income households," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(11), pages 1327-1342, November.
    10. Oleksandr Zhylyevskyy & Helen H. Jensen & Steven B. Garasky & Carolyn E. Cutrona & Frederick X. Gibbons, 2013. "Effects of Family, Friends, and Relative Prices on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption by African Americans," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 226-251, July.
    11. Volpe, Richard & Okrent, Abigail, 2012. "Assessing the Healthfulness of Consumers' Grocery Purchases," Economic Information Bulletin 262129, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    12. Gillespie, Jeffrey & Hatzenbuehler, Patrick & O'Neil, Carol & Lin, Bo & Niu, Huizhen, 2015. "The Impact of Neighborhood Income on the Cost of Energy-Dense and Nutrient-Dense Foods in Supermarkets," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 46(3), pages 1-23, November.
    13. Carlson, Andrea & Dong, Diansheng & Lino, Mark, 2014. "Association between Total Diet Cost and Diet Quality Is Limited," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 1-22, April.
    14. Suzanne Bryce & Inawantji Scales & Lisa-Maree Herron & Britta Wigginton & Meron Lewis & Amanda Lee & Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council, 2020. "Maitjara Wangkanyi: Insights from an Ethnographic Study of Food Practices of Households in Remote Australian Aboriginal Communities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Daniel, Caitlin, 2016. "Economic constraints on taste formation and the true cost of healthy eating," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 34-41.
    16. He, Xi & Lopez, Rigoberto A. & Boehm, Rebecca L., 2018. "Medicaid Expansion and Sugar Consumption in Carbonated Soft Drinks," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273909, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Martinez, Elena M. & Blackstone, Nicole T. & Masters, William A. & Wilde, Parke E., 2023. "Retail prices for sustainable, healthy diets: are foods with lower environmental impacts and healthier nutritional profiles also more expensive?," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335753, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Just, David R. & Gabrielyan, Gnel, 2018. "Influencing the food choices of SNAP consumers: Lessons from economics, psychology and marketing," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 309-317.
    19. Gregory, Christian & Ver Ploeg, Michele & Andrews, Margaret & Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, 2013. "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participation Leads to Modest Changes in Diet Quality," Economic Research Report 262225, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:jlofdr:274599. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fdrssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.