|
From Five Years ago…. 2006 Market Price Comparisons
Market Price Saginaw Store A Saginaw Store B
Banana Peppers $.13 each $.32 each $.80 each
Basil, Dill, Thyme $1.50/bunch $2.49/bunch $2.99-$3.98/bunch
Beets $.20 each $.60 each $.50 each
Butternut/cup Squash $1.00 each $2.80 each $2.60 each
Cabbage (Green) $1.00 each $1.10 each $1.20 each
Cabbage (Red/Savoy) $1.00 each $2.05 each $2.10 each
Cantaloupe $1 regular, $2 large $2.00 each $2.00 each
Cucumbers $.33 each $.79 each $.50 each
Edible Flower & $2.50/lb Didn’t have $6.38/lb Salad Mix
Eggplant $1.00 each Didn’t have $1.50 each
Frying Peppers $.33 each Didn’t have $.80 each
Jalapeno Peppers $.10 each $.15 each $.20 each
Onions $.25 each $.70 sale, $1.12 regular $.90 each
Red Bell Peppers $.33 each $1.33 each $1.16 each
Red Potatoes $2.50/quart $2.75/quart $2.99/quart
Spaghetti Squash $1.00 each $2.60 each $3.00 each
Tomatoes $.50 each $1.34 each $.60 each
Watermelon $3 regular, $4 large $3.99 on sale $3.99 on sale
Zucchini/squash $.33 each $.50 each $.70 each
|
|
More Sense for Less Cents
by Dietrich Bronner
9am-2pm This Saturday at your Frankenmuth Farmers Market!
Only Three More Market Saturdays! Music Courtesy of Frankenmuth Credit Union: Guitarist Riley McLincha The Manors Chefs Ken & Susan Vieau
Two weeks ago, we released our new cost comparison pitting Market prices against two area grocery stores. Just like our last study in 2006, your Market still offers overall less expensive (but more valuable!) items. We found 22 out of 32 items studied cost less at your Market than at the stores. A basket of every item would cost $35.68 at your Market, $40.81 at Store A, and $54.91 at Store B. Clearly, a season of Market shopping means a season of savings for you! But beyond the boost to your bank account by locally bought food, shopping at your Market brings innumerable benefits bolstering our whole region. The few dollars spent at your Market are an investment rewarding you later in so many ways. Your purchases fuel our circle economy, employing the farmers who feed you by giving them 100% of each dollar spent compared to the meager 10-22% of grocery produce prices that find their way back to foreign farmers. This means money keeps flowing locally, so that the same exact dollar bill you forfeit for the freshest food around on Saturday might end up back in your wallet the next week. Talk about priming the economic pumps! Even though a few items cost slightly more at your Market, no price tag can be put on the priceless superior taste, nutrition, and freshness of produce picked within 24 hours. An investment in good food, priced fairly to sustain our farmers and environment, also sustains us. We could buy low-nutrition, processed, packaged food that harms our bodies and our planet at a very low monetary price now. However, health problems, higher healthcare expenses, and money spent to restore our environment add enormous long-term costs to “cheap” “food.” Consistently across the country, eggs and potatoes are often more expensive at Farmers Markets due to industrial producers’ economies of scale. After researching today’s egg industry and realizing potatoes are one of the “Dirty Dozen” conventionally grown foods often treated with 35 pesticides, you will likely rest assured a few extra pennies are worth the wellbeing of your egg-laying hens and the investment in your health. The Dirty Dozen produce items—peaches, apples, peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, grapes, spinach, lettuce, and potatoes—retain high pesticide levels, so buy organic versions when possible. Our study proves the notion that “organic equals expensive” is completely wrong, with organic items at your Market costing less than conventionally grown grocery store produce! Even if this wasn’t the case, your investment in healthful food now can lower future healthcare costs spent rectifying the damage done with less-than-ideal sustenance. Have you been doing your part to keep locals employed, family farms in business, gas demand and usage down, fewer semis wearing out the roads from California, and plastic and other packaging out of landfills? Become a super-saving superhero and make a difference for your family, future generations, and Mother Earth all by buying from your Market! If you haven't been shopping locally to further these benefits, you are causing unnecessary wear on our fragile environment from the “modern” yet unsustainable commercial-industrial system that is only a few decades old. Don’t harm Mother Nature for future generations to worry about, and don’t let your neighbor either. Instead meet them at your Market to make a big difference together! Considering Michigan’s staggering unemployment rate, you have the power to make a tremendous impact for us all. If we partner together to purchase as locally as possible, we really can help ourselves out. For those who don’t bother to visit the Market each week, well, we will still be helping our state with or without you—but hopefully WITH! Visit www.frankenmuthfarmersmarket.org to see the chart showing how your Market’s prices stack up against two area grocery stores. We’ve got the full study there for you to view. While you are online, email frankenmuthfarmersmarket@gmail.com to receive our weekly email newsletter, and be sure to “like us” on Facebook for fun updates, links to Saginaw News articles featuring us, and more. Shopping at your Market makes more sense with less cents!
Market Store A Store B
Apples .46/lb 1.60/lb. .66/lb. Banana Pepper .14 each (organic) .43 each (standard) 1.19 each Basil .75/oz. 1.00/oz. $2.59/oz. Bell Pepper – Colored .25 each 1.25 each S 2.00 each Bell Pepper – Green .25 each .66 each S .80 each Broccoli .66/lb. 1.58/lb. 2.22/lb S Cabbage – Green .25/lb. .46/lb. .49/lb. Cabbage – Red .25/lb. .99/lb. .69/lb. Cantaloupe 2.00 each 1.67 each 2.50 each Carrots 2.29/lb. .46/lb. 1.00/lb S Cucumbers .25 each .50 each S .59 each Cucumbers – Pickling 2.00/qt. Didn’t have Didn’t have Eggplant .50 each (fresh) 1.00 (old, brown) 2.00 each Garlic .33/oz. .19/oz. .19/oz. Gourds .25 each Didn’t have Didn’t have Green Beans – Conventional 1.25/lb. 1.29/lb. Didn’t have Green Beans – Organic 1.00/lb. Didn’t have Didn’t have Hungarian Wax Pepper .20 each .43 each 1.19 each Jalapeno Pepper 1.78/lb. 1.99/lb. 1.89/lb. Leeks .50 each 1.00 each 1.42 each Onion .66/lb. 1.29-1.99/lb. 1.19/lb. Peaches 1.75/lb. 1.39/lb. 1.19/lb. Pears 1.30/lb. 1.79/lb. 1.18/lb. S Plums 1.50/lb. 1.39/lb. .99/lb. S Potatoes .80/lb. .79/lb. .50/lb. Pumpkin – Sugar/Pie 1.00 each 1.99 each Didn’t have Raspberries 3.50/pt. 3.00/pt. 5.00/pt. S Squash (Winter) .25/lb. .79/lb. .69/lb. Sweet Corn 3.75/dozen 2.40/dozen S 6.00/dozen Tomato – Cherry 2.50/pt. (organic) 2.99/pt. (standard) 2.50/each Tomato – Conventional .67/lb. 1.89/lb. .99/lb. Tomato – Organic Heirloom .68/lb. 1.99/lb. 3.33/lb. Watermelon – Large 5.00 each 3.79 each 3.99 each Watermelon – Personal Size 1.00 each 1.00 each 3.99 each Zucchini/Summer Squash .76/lb. 1.10/lb. 1.29/lb.
All numbers are in dollars. “S” indicates a “sale-priced” grocery store item. lb. = pound, oz. = ounce, qt. = quart, pt. = pint
Triple Tomato Tabouleh This whole grain salad abounds with Farmers Market bounty—and is a great way to use up all those herbs and vegetables! 1 cup dry bulgur (cracked wheat) 2 cups tomato juice, warmed to almost simmering ½ cup chopped oven-dried or sun-dried tomatoes 3 cups parsley, chopped ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped ¼ cup minced scallion or onion ½ tsp. pepper ¼ tsp. cumin 2 tomatoes, diced 1 cucumber, diced 3 Tbsp. lemon juice or white balsamic vinegar 2 Tbsp. olive oil Mix bulgur and tomato juice; let stand one hour, stirring occasionally. Combine dried tomatoes with just enough hot water to cover them; let sit 30 minutes until plumped. Mix soaked bulgur thoroughly with the plumped dried tomatoes and their soaking water and all other ingredients except for lemon juice/vinegar and olive oil. Stir in lemon juice/vinegar and chill 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Before serving, stir in oil, adjust seasonings to taste, and mound over romaine lettuce leaves. Serves 6. For a heartier entrée salad, add olives, feta, roast chicken, and/or other favorite items.
Full article and pricing chart available at www.frankenmuthfarmersmarket.org |