The cost of fresh

Study compares prices at weekly markets, grocers

By Jennifer Anderson

The Portland Tribune, Sep 7, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (11 Reader comments)

One of PSU student Adam Hopfe’s summer courses involved taking price data and interviewing vendors at the Portland Farmers Market.

Sarah Toor / PORTLAND TRIBUNE

A plump, juicy, locally grown peach at the Portland Farmers Market cost $3.49 per pound one week in mid-July.

The same peach cost $1 less per pound at New Seasons. An organic peach fetched $3.59 per pound at Safeway, while just a plain old peach was $2.99 per pound at Whole Foods and 98 cents per pound at Wal-Mart.

Surprised?

Don Kruger’s not. The Sauvie Island farmer, who’s become an outspoken advocate for pricing issues, said he has become concerned that many farmers market vendors seem to be charging more than they normally would, just because they can.

“It kind of reminds me of my past,” he said. “I used to own (gourmet food store) City Market NW. … We had an incredibly captive audience, and I felt we may have gone too high on our pricing. Eventually it started to hurt us, but we couldn’t change that image — once you’ve got it, you can’t leave it.”

In 2000, after a decade, Kruger sold the business, tired of the nickname it had earned, “City Mark-up.” It hurt, but he knew it was true, he said.

Now, Kruger has noticed the same “boutique-y” trend at farmers markets, which seem to be riding on the popularity of locally grown food.

“The audience is so captive and so taken by what’s going on there, there’s almost this sky’s-the-limit idea with merchants that they can price out anything they want to price out,” he said. “I believe they need to be cautious.”

The issue of pricing at local farmers markets has been the subject of much study for one class of six seniors at Portland State University, who have spent the past eight weeks documenting the region’s sustainable development efforts.

Under the direction of their professor, Joshua Binus, the class compared 100 items at the farmers markets in the South Park Blocks, as well as Wal-Mart, Safeway, New Seasons and Whole Foods.

The survey shows that farmers market prices come in across the board — sometimes more expensive than at other grocers, sometimes cheaper.

Craig Mosbaek, who co-founded the Portland Farmers Market in 1992 and now is board chairman of a nonprofit advocacy group called Upstream Public Health, said he, too, wouldn’t be surprised if farmers market prices came in higher than other retailers some of the time.

But he disagrees with Kruger’s conclusion that farmers’ prices are set too high.

“I haven’t met a farmer who’s making too much money,” he said. “It costs a lot to grow good food and bring it fresh to market. You have to handle the vegetables more carefully from field to display. A great example is Oregon strawberries, known around the country for flavor and the fact that they don’t ship well. It’s great that here in Oregon that we can get those strawberries fresh from the farmer, and it’s going to cost a little bit more because you can handle them carefully.”

Aaron Silverman, a former farmer and market vendor who now works as the office administrator for the Portland Farmers Market, said his organization is very aware of the pricing issue.

He said the market hears constant feedback from customers about prices, and he has taken his own price comparison survey of a half-dozen core produce items twice in the past year simply to be armed with data.

The latest price comparison, taken about three weeks ago, showed that prices at the markets at the South Park Blocks and Beaverton were lower than at New Seasons in the case of the same types of lettuce, cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes, and comparably priced in the case of eggplant.

“So far (the concern of overpricing) seems to be more an issue of perception than substance,” he said. While the farmers market organization has no role in setting or guiding prices for vendors, Silverman said it does keep tabs on the issue because it is a complicated one.

“They set pricing with an eye toward what the stores are selling,” he said. “And they balance that with internal market competition and the cost of production. … The irony is that for the vendors, it’s probably as much an issue of undercutting prices than charging too much.”

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