Bountiful Baskets... Worth it? For Sure!

I’m always hearing how expensive it is to buy local, farm fresh produce. Is that really true? I decided go on a fact finding mission and check it out for myself! Here’s what I did…

On June 4, 2013, I picked up my weekly delivery of local, farm fresh produce from Live Power Farm’s CSA and catalogued what was in my basket. The basket was overflowing this week with springtime greens!… There was a large head of red leaf lettuce, a large head of romaine lettuce, 4 turnips w/ greens, ½ lb. snap peas, 1 large head of broccoli, 1 lb. spinach, 1 sm. bunch watercress, 1 sm. bunch arugula, 1 large baby bok choy, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch Asian greens, and 1 bunch radishes. 

With this list in hand, I then headed out to two local grocery stores, Raley’s and Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op. Both stores have beautiful, organic produce… though it’s mostly NOT local. Here are a few notes about my procedure: 1) There weren’t always exactly the same items available. For example, the turnips that were for sale at both stores did not include the turnip greens… my CSA basket had tasty turnip greens attached. 2) The stores did not sell the interesting, tasty varieties of Asian greens that were in my Live Power CSA basket… I just found some other specialty green at each store to give an approximation. 3) Raley’s did not have every item available in their organic section, so I did the price comparison with the conventional version of those items (turnips, watercress, and bok choy). And 4) I did my best to check for size and weight that matched up with what was in my CSA basket.

And now… check out the results of my point-in-time price comparison survey.

Fresh Produce	Raley’s	Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op
Red leaf lettuce	$2.49	$1.79
Romaine lettuce	2.49	2.19
Turnips	1.69	1.20
Snap peas	3.00	2.50
Broccoli	1.50	1.00
Spinach	1.50	2.00
Watercress	.50	.80
Arugula	.50	.75
Baby bok choy	2.75	2.25
Kale	1.50	1.00
Asian greens	2.29	2.19
Radishes	1.00	1.69
TOTAL for Live Power CSA  $22.66	TOTAL for Raley’s  $21.21	TOTAL for Co-op  $19.36

I have to say that I am pleased to be eating local, farm fresh, AFFORDABLE produce from Live Power Farm’s CSA. It’s totally worth the extra $2.00 to know exactly where my food is coming from and to be in a relationship with local farmers. Also, I know that as the summer season progresses I’ll be getting WAY more produce in my basket, the tables will turn, and my CSA basket will be much more economical than retail stores.

Are you interested in joining a CSA? Check out the complete listing of Mendocino County CSA’s in the Local Food Guide.