Farmers’ Market versus Grocery Store Produce: Results of the Delta Produce Sources Study

ABSTRACT

Food environments of three farmers’ markets and 12 grocery stores located in five Mississippi Delta towns were measured and descriptively compared. Availability, source, quality, and price of 13 fruits and 32 vegetables were measured from June 2019 to March 2020. Availability was lower for farmers’ markets than grocery stores (29 vs. 39 items) with 27 (93%) farmers’ markets produce sourced locally and four (10%) grocery store produce sourced locally. Prices were higher for farmers’ markets than grocery stores with four exceptions. Compared to grocery stores, farmers’ markets had less variety and higher prices, but locally sourced produce were more prevalent.

KEYWORDS:

• Farmers’ markets
• grocery store
• food environment
• fruits and vegetables
• locally sourced produce
• Lower Mississippi Delta
• rural

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ms. Debra Johnson and Donna Ransome for their research support, and Delta Health Alliance for their in-kind support. This work was supported by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service under Project 6001-51000-004-00D. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US Government determination or policy. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the National Agricultural Library’s Ag Data Commons (https://data.nal.usda.gov/dataset/delta-produce-sources-study; doi: 10.15482/USDA.ADC/1519430).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agricultural Research Service [Project 6001-51000-004-00D].