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E-mail StoryTaste test: Local vs. store produce
| Saturday, May 31 2008 12:00 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jun 2 2008 11:31 AM
Here’s a dirty little secret about some of the food you buy at the grocery store:
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While farmers markets are a place for local growers to sell their produce, not all the food on sale may be locally grown.
Sometimes farmers arrange with growers in other areas to sell their nonlocal produce at a market. So how can you tell if something’s truly fresh and local?
Ask the vendor where the food was grown.
Ask when it was picked.
Produce that contains stickers or have a waxy coating is likely not coming straight from the farm.
The Kern County Agriculture Commissioner must certify any local grower who wants to sell at a farmers market. Ask to see the vendor’s certificate.
Items like bananas, avocados, mangos and pineapples are not grown locally.
Bakersfield
Golden State Mall parking lot, Golden State Highway and F Street, 8 to 11 a.m., Saturdays, all year
Downtown Street Fair, 19th Street and Chester Avenue, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. third Thursday of the month, April through June
Valley Feed Store, 12905 Hageman Road, 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays, May through October Clinica Sierra Vista Community Health Center, 815 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays, May through October
Public Health Department, 1800 Mount Vernon Ave., 3 to 6 p.m. Thursdays, May to October
Bank of America courtyard, northeast corner of Truxtun and Chester avenues, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursdays, July through August
Tehachapi
Railroad Park, Tehachapi Boulevard between South Robinson and Green streets, 4 to 7 p.m. Thursdays, May through September
Ridgecrest
Triangle Drive and Ridgecrest Boulevard, 8 to 11 a.m. Fridays, all year
Lamont
Clinica Sierra Vista Community Health Center, 8787 Hall Road, 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesdays, May through October
Delano
Clinica Sierra Vista Community Health Center, 1508 Garces Highway, 2 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, May through October
Shafter
James Street and Central Avenue, 9 a.m. to noon Wednesdays, May through October
Source: Kern County Agriculture Commissioner
OTHER OPTIONS
Murray Family Farms stores
General Beale Road and Highway 58, 18 miles east of Bakersfield
Phone: 330-0100
Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday through Friday, 8 to 6 p.m. Saturdays (hours may vary throughout the year)
Products: Seasonal berries, apples, peaches, melons, squash, okra, specialty products
Interstate 5 at Copus Road
Phone: 858-1100
Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (hours may vary throughout the year)
Products: Seasonal berries, apples, peaches, melons, squash, okra, specialty products
Abundant Harvest Organics
This subscription-based service began operating in Bakersfield about a year ago.
Customers sign up to receive a weekly box of organic produce grown throughout the San Joaquin Valley, including the Bakersfield area. Customers pick up their weekly box between 8 and 9 a.m. at the Sports Chalet parking lot in Bakersfield.
A large box is $28.80 per week; a small box is $16.80 per week. Last week’s box contained seasonal fruit, onions, lettuce, squash, carrots, leeks and peppers.
Customers can also pay for additional items, such as organic milk, chicken, eggs and juice. For more information, visit abundantharvestorganics.com, or e-mail abundant@bak.rr.com.
Grocery stores
Green Frog Market, 258 Bernard St. and 3711 Columbus St. in Bakersfield.
Depending on the season, Green Frog carries blueberries, cherries, oranges, potatoes, onions, melons, peaches, pomegranates and persimmons. Signs that say “locally grown” are displayed with the items.
Young’s Market, 3030 Brundage Lane. Depending on the season, Young’s sells locally grown watermelon, grapes, carrots, cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines, oranges, potatoes and cherries.
Photos:
The farmers market at Golden State Mall on F Street was busy one recent Saturday morning.
Tomatoes are usually picked green so they can ripen while traveling through an intricate supply chain that can take up to two weeks to get produce from the field to the grocery store shelf.
If those tomatoes are still green when they’re ready for sale, they’re gassed with ethylene to turn the skin red. Sound yummy?
And potatoes may have been stored up to a year somewhere in the Midwest.
Those are just a couple of ways the modern food chain has evolved to allow stores to sell nonseasonal fruits and vegetables throughout the year, according to plant scientist Joe Nunez, who works for the Kern County branch of the University of California Cooperative Extension.
And in most cases, Nunez said, the food’s flavor suffers.
“Oftentimes when produce is stored, the plant material is stressed and that stress can release compounds that causes the plant to taste a little bitter,” he said. “So if you buy it as fresh as possible, fewer of those compounds are released by the plant.”
How do you do that?
One way is to shop at a farmers market.
And this time of year is when most get started.
LOCAL MARKETS
While Bakersfield has one year-round farmers market that operates for three hours each Saturday morning, several others start up in late May and run through September or October.
“The food you by at a farmers market will always taste better because it’s picked ripe,” said Charles Drew, who manages the Kern Farmers’ Market Association.
Another upshot of buying at a farmers market instead of a corporate store is the selection.
While it may not be as big as what you’d find in a corporate store, it’s more unique, according to Gail Feenstra, a food systems analyst for the UC Davis Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.
“You’re going to find varieties at a farmers market you won’t find at a grocery store. They grow heirloom varieties and things known for growing in particular microclimates,” Feenstra said.
Plus, she adds, you can get information about your food that might not be available at the store.
“It’s a more engaged way of interacting with food and buying food. You’re buying it from a person. You can ask questions of the person selling the food to you. How it was grown, where it was grown and how to cook with it,” she said. “You can’t do that in a grocery store. ”
Of course there are trade-offs. Most local farmers markets only operate for a few hours so going to one will likely mean making a special trip.
Also, be mindful of seasonality and price.
With cherries, peaches and other stone fruit coming into season now, the selection at the grocery may be just as good or better than what’s at the farmers market.
TASTE TESTS
The results of a Californian taste test comparing various store-bought and locally grown food found that in-season, store-bought fruit fared well.
The only exception was locally grown blackberries — which all five staffers who participated in the survey agreed had superior taste to the store-bought version from Mexico.
In most cases, though, locally grown food will be cheaper because there’s no middleman and lower transportation costs.
For example, the Californian staffers had an equal preference for the store-bought and locally grown peaches and blueberries. But the store-bought peaches were twice the cost ($3 a pound) as that at the farmers market last week ($1.50 pound).
Similarly, six ounces of blueberries at Vons sold for $3.99, a dollar more than at the farmers market.
Cutting out the middleman also allows stores like Green Frog and Young’s markets to buy local produce and pass on the savings to customers.
While a majority of the food sold by each grocer comes through wholesalers, the stores’ produce managers say they try whenever possible to buy local.
That’s not easy, according to Robert La Sance, a third-generation produce manager at Green Frog.
Most local farmers run large-scale operations and sell their products only through distributors and wholesalers.
“It’s a logistical nightmare for them because I can’t take (the quantity) the bigger stores take,” he said.
Despite the added hassle, La Sance has worked out arrangements with some of the local big guys like Grimmway and Bolthouse, and some small-scale producers because it saves the customer money and results in a better product on the shelf.
“It makes a difference in the flavor,” he said. “If you can get fresh-picked produce, you won’t believe the difference.”