Toward an Informative and Applied Methodology for Price Comparison Studies of Farmers' Markets and Competing Retailers at the Local Scale

Qualitative research on food pricing in regional markets is currently underrepresented in the scholarly literature. The methods used in existing peer-reviewed studies tend to obscure important qualitative differences in the food items they compare and the retail spaces they source. Recently, some non–peer reviewed price comparison studies have emerged that point to some of the complications of earlier studies and offer alternative methods for data collection and comparison. Building upon the contributions of these latter works, this study attempts to improve upon previous studies and provide a set of methods that contribute thoughtfully to future studies. The main goal of this study is to advance research that would better inform consumers and the producers who serve them. The key contribution of this study is a new model for future price comparison studies that accurately provides accessible and practical information for farmers' market producers and consumers.