In NYC, there are plenty of produce vendors on the street that sell aesthetic, fresh fruit for less than cost conscious mega-chains, like Wal Mart, Trader Joes, and Wegmans. The big chains have negotiating power, wholesale discounts, and economies of scale to help them profit on tiny margins. So, how is it that my small, local, fruit stand can outcompete pricewise with national chains and still stay afloat?
In: 2607
Just to add, there are different grades of produce as well. Big chains usually want what’s considered a #1 grade. The small spots can usually take a lower grade like a #2, which can have lots of defects and even mold, and they can sort through and sell as is for less. A lot of times #2 is perfectly fine it just doesn’t meet the standards to be called #1 due to sizing or slight discolour.
Borderlands Foods In Tucson AZ harvests 1000’s of tonnes of “too small and too big” and oversupply, fruits and veggies from farms in AZ CA And Mexico, at a significant discount, go online to see when and where their trucks are visiting each week. I remember several years ago, with a bumper crop of Grapes in the Pacific, Northwest, they had a buy one bag of grapes, get 4 more, free! It’s all perfectly good produce, except the big grocery chains have specific sizes they want for their produce, Borderlands gives you the under, and oversized veggies and fruits for a very low price. Look them up on the internet, get some low cost healthy food!
I worked at Hunts Point Terminal putting orders for wholesalers. They sell to big box and smaller retailers alike. Only difference is big box stores mark up significantly to account for operation costs.
You also have route sellers. Guys drive upstate direct to small farms and have bodega routes they cover; any overage is sold to street stands or end buyers. Id buy a box of plantains or oranges of 100 for 10 bucks- but its not ideal for non retail since things spoil quick.
I believe the answer is two-fold:
**Selling**: Without incurring the same level of overhead costs as the big warehouse stores, the guy at the little stand doesn’t need to mark up the prices as much to turn a profit.
**Buying**: While buying in bulk often counters this in favor of the warehouse stores, it may not apply to perishables (like produce) to the same degree given that the shelf life is far less. This also means the warehouse stores will see more wastage.
For Montreal, lot of them are farmers’ markets.
Dude picks up his parsnip, give it a wash, throw in the truck and sells it to you.
I don’t know the proper explanation, but the cheap fruit stands next to my house in Brooklyn has produce that is on its way out and must be used right away. There’s very little to no shelf life.
I personally love it because I cook all the time and having access to great veggies for cheap is amazing.
I am seeing a lot of comments on overheads. I am not really sure that could be the case though. Because no matter how many exorbitant pricks they pay, averaged over volumes and the category’s they cater to, it should amount to something that’s less than what the street vendor needs to pay himself so that his family gets by.
That distribution chain think might def be legit though.
I used to work at a fruit stand and fruit distribution center.
One is “overhead.” Two is “volume.”
A lot of times the fruit distribution center will only have a few pallets of a certain fruit. Maybe they only have 5 pallets of a certain type of strawberry. The big box stores won’t want this group of strawberries because it’s not enough to fill their shelves. That gives the smaller places a chance to get them for cheap.
The other way to get fruit for cheap is to buy slightly older fruit. If it didn’t sell the first day it was there, it’ll be sold cheaper the next day. Yes, this means there will be more “bad” product on the pallet. Product that has spoiled or has a bit of mold. The big stores won’t want this again because it won’t last long enough to make it to their shelves. The small fruit stands can go ahead and buy this and literally cherry pick the good fruit to sell it THAT DAY. We used to do this all the time. We’d buy fruit that was actually ripe and wouldn’t last a few more days, then sell it THAT day.
Basically, small fruit stands can buy cheaper fruit because it’s A: already ripe or B: too small a quantity for larger stores to want and C: don’t have overhead to drive the price up.
EDIT: On a related note if you work at one of these places. Definitely don’t snack on a bunch of cherries as you work. Lots of fruit has a LOT of fiber…. Just sayin.
I can actually speak to the one in Boston. Haymarket is often called a “farmers market” but in reality its the furthest thing from it. The food may look fresh, but it is very much not so.
First my source: In college I worked for a large Citrus and Corn distributor.
So, what happens is, there is a large produce distribution center on the border between Everett/Chelsea MA, which is a few miles north of Haymarket. The majority of fresh fruit and veg being shipped into New England comes in here before it is sent off to the supermarkets, restaurants, etc. The distribution center itself is made up of dozens of smaller independent companies that rent or buy dock space and each typically specializes in a few items.
Anyway, a lot of the big orders that are done by supermarket chains are essentially just taken off the distributors truck and put on the supermarket ones, this is by far the freshest product.
But the distributors dont just buy for the big guys, and some of the big guys have figured out they can buy direct from the grower and have it all shipped to them directly, but thats another matter. In order to have product for the smaller buyers, the distributors need to keep stock in their own refrigerated spaces and then sell things off a few boxes or pallets at a time. What happens though is the system isnt perfect and some of the stuff sits around for a good while.
Enter the Haymarket buyers. Many of them are actually dock workers during the week, who setup shop at Haymarket on the weekends and they have deals with the distributors, who are often their day to day employers, where they take all the old stuff for a few bucks a box, if even that much. This frees up space in the warehouse and sells a product that no one else will buy. Since this is often cash deals, the product is also normally written off as loss (had an old boss who got some jail time for that one)
So the haymarket guys take the boxes that are best described as “puss” and they go through it trying to salvage any they can. As I said above, I worked at a citrus company and would help out at Haymarket on the weekends. There were times that I would open boxes or oranges or lemons and a box that was supposed to have 90 or so items in it would have 2-3 that were actually sellable and even that is only after getting a good bath to wash off the parts of the other rotten fruit that got on them. It wasnt at all unheard of to have boxes that would make this look fresh:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Rotten%2C_moldy_and_decaying_oranges.jpg/1280px-Rotten%2C_moldy_and_decaying_oranges.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Rotten%2C_moldy_and_decaying_oranges.jpg/1280px-Rotten%2C_moldy_and_decaying_oranges.jpg)
Now, I dont know how it works in NYC, but I do know Hunts Point is setup the same way as the New England Produce Center, so I imagine there are some similarities.
If you have to ask, I would NEVER actually eat anything that came from haymarket, no matter how cheap it is.
The basics: The produce comes from farms upstate. Either the farmer or a middle-man drives it into the city at about 3 am, when there’s not much traffic.
It remains affordable because supermarkets have about 4 additional middle men, while these small operations do not.
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