[PurpleLove08]

Have you checked The Station, the farmer's market or other places that sell locally grown produce?

DC at the Ridge certainly has the right idea.

Buying locally grown produce tends to be cheaper than produce grown far away.

[DC at the Ridge]

Originally Posted by johncronejr

I have been a businessman for a good number of years. I have never found a good excuse to put out a less than quality product.

Having to ship my products throughout the U.S., I am aware that freight can vary greatly from one region to the next. However, I cannot imagine freight costing as much as $1.20 per grapefruit more. Perhaps since I have never been in the grocery business I am just ignorant of the costs associated with that particular business.

The bottom line for me is that I could live with the extra costs if I was getting a quality product. Until all businesses start caring about putting out top quality, we will keep driving around to different stores to find what we need. I plan on checking out the Little Rock Farmer's Market this year, and my wife is going to get a big garden going.

I appreciate your input DC.

I know what you are saying about the $1.20 grapefruit mark-up, but here's the thing. The Austin store probably ordered it's grapefruit from XY Produce. XY Produce had a big shipment of grapefruit come in, and put it on special, $9.00 a case, 36 grapefruit to a case if you ordered a truckload of it. The Austin store ordered a couple of truckloads, and used it as a come-in special, because once their 10-cent markup just covered the freight costs. The Heber Springs store you visited just doesn't have enough customers who buy grapefruit to make it worth it to them to buy a truckload. XY won't ship by less than a truckload. Their normal cost is $19.00 a case. ST Grocers is a middleman in your area (made-up company). They buy by the truckload, and then sell on a route to the grocers things like the grapefruit. ST Grocers orders that truckload from XY, and they get the $9.00/case cost, but they don't pass on the full break to your Heber Springs grocer. ST Grocers has to pay twice the freight charges. Then they have to warehouse it. In a refrigerated warehouse. They have employees to unload the freight, and to load the freight when it's been sold. They have salesmen who get paid on commission, and they let the saleman know that grapefruit is on the special list this week. They have warehouse personnel, and they have office personnel who work up the orders and the invoices, who work out truck delivery routes, and how orders need to be loaded on the trucks. They have delivery drivers, and mechanics to keep their trucks in working order. And every employee, every overhead cost adds a penny here, a penny there to the cost of that grapefruit.

[johncronejr]

See that is what gets me DC. I fully understand if the prices vary greatly among Harps, Krogers, etc....because of buying from various wholesalers. I just figured that with Wal Mart, they would not have such a variance due to their buying power, and the fact that most of their purchasing occurs through the same office in Arkansas.

Most likely the biggest issue in places like Austin and Minneapolis is the competition from other stores in those areas. If they are selling at great prices and offering quality, then Wal Mart has to step up their game in those areas.

[DC at the Ridge]

Originally Posted by johncronejr

See that is what gets me DC. I fully understand if the prices vary greatly among Harps, Krogers, etc....because of buying from various wholesalers. I just figured that with Wal Mart, they would not have such a variance due to their buying power, and the fact that most of their purchasing occurs through the same office in Arkansas.

Most likely the biggest issue in places like Austin and Minneapolis is the competition from other stores in those areas. If they are selling at great prices and offering quality, then Wal Mart has to step up their game in those areas.

Produce is a different ballgame than hardgoods like electronics or tires, or softgoods like clothing. Wal-Mart's buying power isn't the same when they are dealing with one local wholesaler for six stores, versus regional buying for 3000 stores. Also, the purchasing for produce may not be done on the corporate level. Having once worked for a vendor, I can tell you that a surprising amount of merchandise is purchased at the store level. Yes, you have to have corporate approval to sell at the store level, and your UPC codes have to submitted to corporate, but Wal-Mart has programs that let vendors call on department managers, and those department managers can order independently of corporate. Local Wal-Marts in my area have been featuring locally grown produce (they put the name of the grower and where his farm is located on the display) for the past two years. The grapefruit example doesn't fall under this, but many Wal-Marts are run like independent stores, with department managers ordering via corporate or via vendors as they need to do so.

[hognoxious]

Originally Posted by johncronejr

Most likely the biggest issue in places like Austin and Minneapolis is the competition from other stores in those areas. If they are selling at great prices and offering quality, then Wal Mart has to step up their game in those areas.

Bingo - Walmart refers to this practice as 'store of the community'.

[OleGrouch]

Produce customers are the problem, there are so few. The stores are unable to order small enough quanities or to keep quality products if they can't sell the products. Check Arkansas fast food business's, bbq, pizza, burgers, lots of customers waddle in there to eat. Not many families and very few young families cook healthy meals at home anymore. Most are single parent families until after dark. Medicaid picks up the health care bill for those not eating their fruits and veggies, they are doing a landslide business. B

[ozarksboy]

John, it sounds like you're very homesick for Austin. Maybe that's why you're frustrated with Arkansas. I'll be you miss all that great music, too.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by ozarksboy

John, it sounds like you're very homesick for Austin. Maybe that's why you're frustrated with Arkansas. I'll be you miss all that great music, too.

I kinda thought the same thing. Often when people post on these threads negatives it is because they miss where they used to call home and this, I think, is natural.
I have never found the produce more expensive or worse than other places we have lived. I visit Dallas quite often, as well as OKC, prices and quality are similar. Of course as I have mentioned, I normally do not shop at Wal-Mart, I do think their produce is higher, but not spoiled by any means.

Nita

[tutufay]

I moved here from Florida and believe it or not the produce in Walmart there was terrible too. They actually sold citrus from California!!!! Of course we could just go to publix and pay an arm and a leg and get quality, but I could always go to the produce stands run by the Mennonites and get real food for less. Here in Mena we are prisoners with no choice, so we just grow our own as best we can, and eat peaches instead of oranges.

[ozarksboy]

I always encourage folks around here (in Missouri) to grow as much of their own food as they can and then supplement that by going to the farmers markets (we've had three a week in Rolla the last couple of years plus one over in St. James) and buying locally grown produce. We've got some bad soil in the southern Missouri Ozarks but the homegrown produce is usually very flavorful.

I think the price and quality of the produce in supermarkets fluctuates with the growing seasons, so the stuff they have to ship in may not be good at certain times of the year. Maybe this isn't avocado or grapefruit season. I guess the OP is new to the area and may not understand that.