how much more will you pay ?

[ratherbefishin]

to buy ''natural'' beef, chicken, pork, eggs,milk, and produce?We all want the most ''natural'' products- but how much more are we prepared to pay the producer?The fact is, small holders have higher costs-and they can't compete with mass produced produce, or meat.

[Beeman]

I honestly don't look to pay anymore. In many cases I don't trust the small holders to be any better quality. In many cases a small processor is cutting more corners than the big boys in efforts to make it profitable.

[Cyngbaeld]

It really depends on quality as much as anything. I'm willing to pay more for real food than for the cardboard imitation junk in the stores. Once you eat a real, tree ripened peach you can never again buy one at the store that was picked green and shipped in.

[Beeman]

If your talking produce then definetly no more as it's only ripe in season and the market is flooded at that time. In season ripe vegetables are usually cheaper at that time.

[Freeholder]

You're asking the wrong people. Fellow homesteaders aren't going to be your best market, since in many cases they are raising a lot of their own food. Your market is going to be well-off, well-educated people who care about their health, and the health of what they eat. Homesteaders may meet most of those criteria, but few of us are well-off!

Kathleen

[moonwolf]

Just going by what is available at the local Farmer's Market, most go there to get 'fresh' and 'natural', but also to save a little. It takes some encouragement to get customers away from the big chain grocers, so the price is same or a bit less and not more. At least that's what I've observed. Some specialty items that are not in abundance at the season and the first vendors offering these can ask a premium price. An example might be the one type of 'farmers sausage' that earned a reputation for unique taste not offered elsewhere. It sells for maybe 10% premium to similar in the big stores, though I'm now sure how to judge ingredient for ingredient. The vendor must be making some money with it, as they've sold it for years and a bunch of it. I think there is a limit to what can be asked for many items of produce 'in season', such as tomatoes in July, etc. You won't get 25% higher price than what is in the grocery store. At least not around here. Fresh farm eggs I think you could get 25% to 50% premium for jumbo brown double yolkers or something like that, and say they are 'free range organic natural'........

[ratherbefishin]

we have a grocery chain store here that supports local producers,and if they are certified ''organic'' they have a special section for their produce.Due to being in canada, we have to bring a lot of fresh produce in from Mexico and California in the winter months.They also sell''grass fed '' beef, too

[amelia]

Don't know how typical I am (many think I'm downright peculiar), but for the longest time my frugal streak kept me from buying the natural, organic stuff. But after hearing one too many stories about hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, bacteria, mutant genes, and now prions (still don't know what these are), I finally started buying quality stuff, often, as in the case of milk and meat, at twice the price. After buying organic a few times, a funny thing happened; I began no longer regarding these items as particularly expensive. When you think about it, our ingrained expectations about the cost of particular items is entirely arbitrary--it's only the fact that we're used to being able to buy a half-gallon of milk for $1.49 that makes us resist paying $3.00 per half-gallon for it. However, when you think about the various other things that we arbitrarily value at $3.00 (a grande latte, a 30-minute phone call, a set of batteries, a gallon of gas, one dose of prescription medication, a Sunday paper, a coin-op car wash), the price of a nutrient-packed half-gallon of fresh, organic milk makes it seem like one heck of a good deal.

[marvella]

the one, little, southern owned, grocery store that is left, after walmart came to town, still does buy produce form local famers. it's still possible to get fresh fish- trout mainly- if anyone is enterprising enough to go catch it and bring it to the store. hardly anyone does that anymore. but they store will still buy it, and put it out to sell. i buy all i can of that, as it it usually labelled as locally grown. they also have their own corporate brand of organic stuff. the veggies they ship in from CA are pretty marginal sometimes, the frozen vegetables are usually full of ice crystals like they have been thawed and refrozen a few times. but other stuff is outstanding, most of the fruit is way tastier and ripe than anything else on the shelves. darn good peanut butter, they even have organically fed chicken. yes, sometimes at double the price. i buy what i can, in hopes they will keep on doing it.

so yes, i'll pay a good bit more for local and organic. i don't mind cutting off a small blighted area, they don't have to be perfect looking. i'll take a few blemishes for food with actual taste, any day.

i'm not real sure why farmers aren't knocking themselves out to go organic. it really looks like what is on the horizon, a return to small local farms. i know the small farmers still have to compete with big corporate farms, but from my view of it, we're out there looking for it, and it's not readily available.

[desdawg]

I shop for food much as I shop for anything else. The more I spend for these "necessities" the less I have available for my projects. The price of food in the grocery stores Is higher than I ever remember seeing it. If I am going to take the time to run around to a multitude of other places its going to be to save something, not to spend more.
Now I am going to have to live to be 100 just to finish the projects I have started. My last hospital visit was 57 years ago when I was born there. So whatever I am doing seems to be working. And I believe that if it isn't broken don't fix it. I see people who worry about "health issues" all of the time and they are constantly ill. That's where your market is going to be. Cater to that group and you should do well.

[WisJim]

We regularly pay premium prices at the local food co-op or grocery store for cheese, milk, meat, and fruits and vegetables that are either organic or produced locally. During the summer we buy locally produced meat at a premium price from the growers at the farmer's market, and the rest of the year we go to the small butcher shop for their better quality product. I don't mind paying more for good food, especially "organice" or "natural" food, as I know from experience what it takes to produce it, and I want to do what I can to support small local farmers. We have a dairy in the area that sells milk at the local food co-op, and I know it cost them a lot to deal with the returnable glass bottles that they sell it in, but it is organic milk, and they are doing a job that I feel someone should be doing, and they deserve a fair price for it.
Remember, one of the reasons that much of the food in the stores is so cheap is that the people raising the raw materials for it, the basic crops, aren't getting paid enough to live a "good" live, so I am willing to pay more when I am reasonably sure that the grower or farmer is getting more in his pockets for his work.

Jim

[ratherbefishin]

of course we the consumers are responsable for much of the produce and meat we see, in demanding''perfect'' looking produce, which neccesitates using sprays.We all want ''perfect'' tomatoes and apples without blemishes and reject oddlooking shapes and sizes.We want well marbled beef, and we want cheap chicken, so agri-biz is only responding to consumer demand.Celophane wrapped meat and polished apples and produce with no spots or marking is what consumers have become used to.When's the lasttime you saw turkeys all hanging in the butcher store-and sawdust on the floor- or apples in barrels?

[Wayne02]

Originally Posted by Beeman

I honestly don't look to pay anymore. In many cases I don't trust the small holders to be any better quality. In many cases a small processor is cutting more corners than the big boys in efforts to make it profitable.

Yup, same views here. I will absolutely not pay anymore for so called "organic" stuff.

Wayne

[WanderingOak]

Organic food is most often higher quality than 'conventonally' raised food. Organic vegetables are healther as well, since conventonally raised vegetables absorb nitrogen from the fertelizer that is in common use. It's gotten to the point where I can't stand the taste of 'battery' eggs because I have been buying organic free range eggs for so long. There is definitely a taste difference, and if there is a cost difference, I don't mind paying it. The same thing goes for meats. Not only do organic meats taste better in my opinion, but the animals are raised more humanely, and the meats are probably considerably healthier than conventonally raised meats, so again, it's worth the higher costs. If I had my druthers, I'd be raising and slaughtering my own meat, but right now, I can't.

[JackieA]

Originally Posted by ratherbefishin

to buy ''natural'' beef, chicken, pork, eggs,milk, and produce?We all want the most ''natural'' products- but how much more are we prepared to pay the producer?The fact is, small holders have higher costs-and they can't compete with mass produced produce, or meat.

I pay higher - whatever is available (10% and up) - but have cut way down on eating meat so haven't really noticed the difference in the grocery bill!
JackieA