"No need to head to the Farmer's Market! Head to Cub Foods, to fill your basket with fresh produce picked at the peak of the season!" - Pandora ad that just played at me
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I suppose if you don't count Whole Foods as a big box store--but I think a lot of the higher-end ones are catching on. That's how you get the foodporny descriptions of where foods were grown and by whom, and things like barcodes that you can read on your cellphone that give you the product history (which is so cool).
Take the average person. Now make that person somebody who listens to Pandora. Chances that said person buys things at farmer's markets have just gone up 1600%.
What? That doesn't make sense. Pandora's a free online thing for lazy internet people. Lazy internettiness is not indicative of farmer's market patronage. I am unconvinced.
If you listen to Pandora, it means you're enough of a snooty geek to be sitting at a computer all day. Or, even more so, it means you're running it as an app on your expensive internet-connected shiny-phone-that's-really-a-computer-too. From there, it's just a hair's breadth away from putting on your ironic t-shirt, hopping into your Prius, and driving noiselessly to the farmers' market to buy fresh heirloom vegetables.
(We're still working on the Prius; twelve-year-old Corolla is holding up fine, and we don't hit the farmers' market much these days-because the Milk Pail is all local produce, the community-supported agriculture subscription is on Fridays, and half the back yard is a vegetable garden thanks to chinders.)
In general though, I think you'll find that Pandora usage and farmers' market visits are both correlated with well-educated, upper-middle-class, young-to-middle-aged people.
I read an article not too long agoladylaurelJuly 13 2010, 19:32:57 UTC
About Target's overhaul vs. grocers. As you may have noticed, Target first, and now Walmart second, have been expanding the stores to offer food - some have kinda small selections, and some are quite vast. People like the convenience of it and its cheaper! I noticed food at my Target was cheaper, but I thought it was just the stuff I bought perhaps, but the article verified that. Anyhow, the article (it was in the Strib), went on to say that for the first time in many years Cub was not the #1 seller of food. It was Target/Walmart. Let me say that again. Target and Walmart sold more FOOD than a chain devoted to selling ONLY and LOTS of DIFFERENT KINDS of food.
Now, this is a digression from famers markets, Whole Foods, CSAs, and etc. discussion, but between more people shopping 'local'/organic and more people shopping at Target, the grocery store chains are definitely feeling the pinch.
Food is acquired at the farmer's market when it looks both tasty and cheap and we happen to be there (ditto PCC, which is both big box and a real co-op), but otherwise primarily from QFC or Safeway (= Cub or Rainbow). So probably 10-25% of our produce and slightly less of our meats come from the farmer's market.
I am not surprised that farmer's markets and organic foods are not affected by the recession, as it's primarily a recession for low-income workers, with the middle class only slightly affected and upper middle and above affected scarcely at all. You'll note which of those is the main demographic for farmer's market and organic foods.
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(We're still working on the Prius; twelve-year-old Corolla is holding up fine, and we don't hit the farmers' market much these days-because the Milk Pail is all local produce, the community-supported agriculture subscription is on Fridays, and half the back yard is a vegetable garden thanks to chinders.)
In general though, I think you'll find that Pandora usage and farmers' market visits are both correlated with well-educated, upper-middle-class, young-to-middle-aged people.
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Now, this is a digression from famers markets, Whole Foods, CSAs, and etc. discussion, but between more people shopping 'local'/organic and more people shopping at Target, the grocery store chains are definitely feeling the pinch.
Reply
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I am not surprised that farmer's markets and organic foods are not affected by the recession, as it's primarily a recession for low-income workers, with the middle class only slightly affected and upper middle and above affected scarcely at all. You'll note which of those is the main demographic for farmer's market and organic foods.
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