April 1 is the traditional opening day of the season for many farmers markets across the country and with an exceptionally long and cold winter, it couldn’t come fast enough!
While shopping at local markets can be a lot of fun and a great way to try new foods, the cost of local and specialty produce can add up, if we’re not careful. Here are eight strategies for saving at the farmers market this season:
1. Shop With a Flexible List
Rule #1 of shopping is always – make a list! Before you leave the house, look at your meal plan for the next 7-10 days and make a detailed shopping list that includes the name of each item you need and how much you need (quantity). When it comes to produce, I also recommend including what meal the item is planned for, incase you find something at a better price that can easily be substituted, such as yellow squash for zucchini in summer squash pasta, or nectarines for peaches in oatmeal breakfast crumble.
2. Know What’s in Season
In-season produce is usually more affordable, better tasting and contains more nutrients compared to produce that is not in season and is shipped from a far away location. Know what’s in season before you shop using this cool page from the Natural Resources Defense Council. It allows you to see what’s in-season by state, by month and by food!
Another option is Lovacore, a free app that shows you what’s in season and what local markets carry what you’re looking for. For those who prefer the paper/pencil method, download a free in-season printable guide.
3. Visit Several Markets in Your Area
I live in a relatively small town, but there are 11 farmers markets within a 20-mile radius and there is an enormous variety at each one – including the prices. For example, I visited two farmers markets on the same day. One market had conventional apples for $1.69 per pound and were not labeled as local. Another had local, organic apples for just $1.50 per pound – a difference of almost 20¢/lb in favor of the locally-grown organic variety!
Get to know the markets in your area and be able to distinguish which is the most affordable, which is best for organic items, and which offers those unique produce items that are fun to experiment with. Plan your trips to each market according to your shopping list and your budget. If you’re new to shopping at farmers markets, or need help finding some in your area, visit LocalHarvest.org or EatWellGuide.org.
4. Know What’s on Sale in Stores
I love supporting local farms, but sometimes shopping at grocery stores is the better option for a frugal grocery budget. Before you leave for the market, compare your shopping list with the sales circulars from your local stores and write down the sale prices. Then when you’re at the market, compare the stand prices against the prices you wrote down. But remember, choosing the lowest price isn’t always the best, since it might mean poorer quality and making an extra trip, thereby costing more in the long run in gas and time.
5. Walk the Entire Market First, Before Making Any Purchases
Not only do prices vary from market to market, but they can vary greatly from stand to stand within the same market! For example, the Swiss chard you see above on the left is $2 per bunch, while the Swiss chard on the right is $1.50 per bunch – and they’re both organic!
So before you buy anything, walk the entire market from end to end, noting the prices of the items on your shopping list along the way. Then make a second pass through and choose the stands that have the best price for the best quality.
6. Shop the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen
These lists, published yearly by the EWG, are a super helpful yes/no guide to buying organic. Grapefruit, avocados and onions rank very low in terms of pesticide residue, so you can save money by opting not to buy these organic. This will allow you to better afford to purchase organic for items that do rank high with pesticide residue, like strawberries, peaches and celery.
On the other hand, don’t write off vendors who aren’t certified organic. The process for becoming certified is very time-consuming and expensive and many small family farms just can’t afford to be certified, although they still follow organic practices. Ask if they use chemical pesticides or fertilizers or more natural methods instead, and what those methods are.
[Note from Kelly: I personally recommend getting to know your local farmers by discussing with them their farming methods and visiting their farms. Case in point, Tanaka Farms in Southern CA, is not organic certified but does follow organic practices and has farm tour visits and explains how they grow their produce. So to Tiffany’s point, yes, for some family farms it truly is an expensive process to be certified. But of course, we do have to be wary of those who would be dishonest. That’s why getting to know your local farmers is so important.]
7. Buy “Seconds”
The farmers are looking to sell their foods, even if they’re ugly or misshapen. These are often bagged and priced separately, or in a bin of their own, and marked down accordingly. Take advantage of the deal if those items are on your list.
I’ve also seen venders sort through their boxes in the middle of the day, removing the foods that aren’t in tip-top shape. If you see someone doing this, ask them if they’re selling those less-than-stellar items and how much they’re selling them for. You might want to have a price in mind as well, incase they’ve never been asked for their ugly foods before.
8. Bargain When Buying in Bulk
Farmers work very hard to provide quality food, and the prices reflect this. It can be insulting to attempt to bargain with them over one or two heads of lettuce that were just cut from the field within the past 24-48 hours. However, if you’re willing to buy 5-10lbs of something, they’re often willing to shave off a few dollars. Just be sure you have a plan for all the produce so it doesn’t go to waste!
BONUS! Other tips to make your experience at the farmers market a good one:
- Bring Cash – smaller bills and change if possible
- Bring Your Own Bag – consider bringing back glass jars, egg crates and pallet/flat containers if you previously bought them from the vendors. Some offer cash back for these items.
- Arrive Early for Best Selection
- Shop 30 Minutes Before Close for Possible Deals – Many people swear by this, but not all farmers discount their items just so they don’t have to bring them home! It’s worth a try once or twice though, to either rule the possibility out, or to have a new savings strategy!
What are your favorite tips for saving money at farmers markets? Leave them in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!
Note from Kelly: Don’t miss all of the other great budgeting posts that Tiffany has shared here. Simply click here and keep scrolling through to see her many helpful posts on how to save money on your food budget.
Shop 30 Minutes Before Close for Possible Deals – Many people swear by this, but not all farmers discount their items just so they don’t have to bring them home! It’s worth a try once or twice though, to either rule the possibility out, or to have a new savings strategy!
I think these are some great strategies and thank you for supporting local farmers – I myself am one, and without our customers we wouldn’t be doing what we love! But, from a farmers perspective: if you encourage people to ask for deals 30 minutes before market closes, aren’t you encouraging a lot of people to come late to market and not pay the prices that these farmers need to keep their heads above water? Margins are tight, we really don’t live on much. Our market has a rule that we are not to discount our prices – we set prices at the beginning and they stay that way through the end. We can’t afford to be giving discounts to everyone who asks. (At some markets, shopping late isn’t an advantage anyway – it means there’s no food left!)
By waiting until the last 30 minutes the buyer is taking a chance on getting the least appealing produce or even none at all–that certainly isn’t tasking advantage of anything or anyone by waiting until the end. Most likely the farmer has it left over for reasons that led to no one wanting it–maybe over ripeness, bad blemishes, spoilage, etc–so it may not be worth the regular price of all the good stuff that has been taken. Unless the markets have regulations, it’s the farmers’ choices to discount; Tiffany isn’t saying to expect great deals, just that you might find some if the farmers have chosen to mark down items. Plus, how many market shoppers do you really think are going to be influenced by this strategy? I’ve been to the markets many days at different times and have worked booths. It is ALWAYS crowded early and bare about the last half hour. I don’t think many people are benefitting, nor are many farmers losing from discounts at the end. The ones I worked with were happy to discount if they had a good morning and just didn’t discount if they didn’t sell much.
Hi Jennifer!
I’ve run into the same situation as you – crowded early and empty late, which has indeed influence how I shop (the market loses its fun appeal when you’re balancing NOT losing kids and browsing produce among the crowded masses) – and what I’ve found at the end of the market is just as you mentioned – ugly fruits, bruised and/or damaged. For reasons like those is why I asked for a discount – those tomatoes aren’t perfectly beautiful and blemish-free as the $3/lb should suggest they be! Some farmers say yes, and other say no. It never hurts to ask and their answer is final. While neither person is gaining huge in their own right, each little bit helps. I save a few bucks on my budget, they’re able to make a few bucks on produce they might otherwise trash!
Thanks for your note, Lou. Tiffany does note in the content above that farmers do work on tight margins and not all can or will discount. She also pairs this tip about checking with the farmers prior to closing time on any deals with the tip right above it “to arrive early for best selection.” So I don’t believe this article is pushing disrespectful aggressive bargaining tactics. She’s simply sharing her experience of the principle “it doesn’t hurt to ask,” as long as you are polite and respectful. After all, we’re operating on tight budgets too, so we are in the same boat and completely understand that our local farmers work hard to make a living for their families as well. That’s why we posted this – to encourage more families to support local farmers! 🙂
It sounds like the market you sell at has set a good rule so that there is no discounting, but at some local markets, farmers do opt to discount at the end of the day and some do opt to sell their blemished produce at a discount. But again, this isn’t the case with all markets or farmers.
I believe Tiffany has worked hard here to provide lots of good ideas to help us save money and the “asking for discounts” tip is such a small part of the 8 strategies shared. So please know that we definitely want to support our local farmers and be able to manage our tight family budgets as best as we can. By working together, we can ensure a great future of healthy produce for our children and their children to enjoy for years to come.
Thanks again for being a great resource for healthy produce that is grown environmentally friendly and safe for our families. Blessings, Kelly 🙂
Hi Lou!
As a buyer, there are advantages and disadvantages to shopping early and shopping late. If you go early, you get the best choice of the best produce and definitely pay full price. Go late and they might not have what you need, what’s left could be ugly and bruised from other buyers squishing and touch, and I MIGHT get a slight discount. By no means am I suggesting to go in and haggle the farmer to reduce the price to basically nothing, but it never hurts to ask if they’re willing to sell it for 25¢ per pound or 50¢ less overall. And like your market, there are some in my area that don’t budge on prices at all (which I only learned by asking a couple vendors). I believe readers know how to appropriately bargain so that both they and farmer are benefitting and as the seller, the farmer always has the right to say no and that should be respected by the buyer.
As much as I would like to help support local farmers, my money-saving tip is to avoid Farmer’s Markets… more expensive than Costco or Trader Joe’s, sometimes lots more :/ Plus the hours and locations aren’t convenient to go just to “see what I might find”. Our local grocery store chain carries local produce during the summer months, but the prices are almost always higher than the non-local stuff. Go figure… the stuff from 60 miles away costs more than the stuff from 1000 miles away… what’s up with that?? Organic is worse… much pricier. Sorry, not paying $8 for 5 pounds of organic potatoes no matter how good they are or where they come from. $2.99 for 10 lbs. is a much better deal ($8 per week vs. $1.50 per week, I think that’s a no brainer!). Strawberries? $3.99 for 2lbs at Costco. Organic at Costco are $4.99 per pound, local organic are $6.99/lb. See what I mean? When local and organic stuff becomes more resonably priced I will buy more. But right now, unless I find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it is totally out of my budget. Except for those 1lb. bags of baby carrots that are only 5 cents more for organic 🙂
Pam, I respect where you are coming from, but I think that most people truly do not understand how difficult it is to make it as a small family farmer. You can read more about it here at a friends blog, if you’d like to try to understand better: http://finnmeadowsfarm.blogspot.com/2013/09/why-is-local-organic-food-more-expensive.html
Really, what it boils down to is the whole idea of a handmade sweater vs a factory made sweater (even the so-called local produce you are referring to at your grocery is mostly grown using tractors – no small farmer who sells at a farmers market around here has their produce in a store, because they can’t produce enough at a steady pace for what the grocery wants). Why is the handmade sweater more expensive? It took a lot more work than just setting a machine to do the work for you. Hope that this can help explain things better for you.
So while buying your produce “locally” (200 miles) at a grocery store might be better for the environment at least in terms of trucking costs, there are many more things to consider when purchasing produce (including your budget). Also, keep in mind that locally grown produce is a huge trend right now, and grocery stores know this. They might also just be playing on that trend. The only way to actually know where its coming from and how its grown is to talk to the farmers themselves, and that way, you know that all the money is going to the farmer – both to their business and to their family. And I will tell you that the past 5 years of family farming a variety of products, we still hover just at the poverty line (though we do eat well). That is true of every farmer I know at the market, and I’m sure that you would think their prices are high.
My farmers market is always WAY more expensive than my local grocery store. My local store has the majority of their produce from 100 mile radius farmers, and a decent choice of organic items. Ex. I can drive about an hour to a blueberry farm and get better prices than my local farmers market hands down. Plus I get to pick my own, so I know I only get the biggest, sweetest berries!
After reading people’s raves about their farmer’s markets, I spent a summer frequenting markets in my area. I was not impressed.
I live in the midwest, just outside of a ‘major city’ so maybe it’s different in other parts of the country? I wouldn’t think so, since I’m on the south end of the city and near the ‘farm belt’….