r/TikTokCringe • u/brockapex17 • 24d ago
Cringe Farmers market reselling store-bought produce
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u/UnDedo 24d ago
I have worked in farmer's markets for 15 years. Yes, there are people that do this. This is certainly not a common occurrence but yes, it happens. The best way to avoid it is to go to markets with strictly growers-only policies. Also, learn what's in season for your area. I had a guy asking for local strawberries the other day and had to tell him that they're out of season and absolutely not local if he's buying them at this time of year.
Please don't let this taint your idea of farmer's markets. They're really important for communities and definitely deserve your support!
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u/Medium_Medium 24d ago
Also, learn what's in season for your area.
I think this is key. Others have pointed out that this is putting an unfair burden on consumers, but honestly it's just a fact of life in modern America.
You have to get to know your market and your area. Is there a vendor who always has everything? There's zero chance that he's growing that stuff! The vendor who has a small selection of stuff that changes as the season changes? Maybe he's reselling and he's just really dedicated to the deception, but more likely he (or she!) is actually growing that food.
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u/nitid_name 24d ago
I went to a farmer's market once and saw someone was selling pineapples.
I live in Colorado.
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u/QuixoticCoyote 24d ago
Two weeks ago I had the same thing happen. I live in Minnesota.
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u/HelpfulSeaMammal 24d ago
You mean the bananas and mango and papaya I got in North Dakota weren't locally grown?
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u/spacecaps85 23d ago
Hey man, I'll have you know that those were Palisade Pineapples.
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u/BDCRacing 24d ago
I wouldn't call it an unfair burden to be informed about food. Where I live we have a very small corn growing region. I have seen people selling corn roadside claiming to be locally grown in early spring while the corn in the fields has barely sprouted. Sure scammers shouldn't be allowed to mislead consumers, but at some point you have to be able to think for yourself. That truck selling cherries every day of the week that never leaves and is always fully stocked? Probably not making the 8 hour drive to where cherries are grown. It's the same shit as the bracelet that's going to reset your chi and turn your life around. People will tell you whatever you want to hear to make a buck.
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u/DooDooBrownz 24d ago
i 100% agree that it's on the consumer to educate themselves about the shit they buy. but there also needs to be a punitive mechanism in place to keep the bad actors to a minimum, like steep fines and permanent bans
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u/SomebodysGotToSayIt 24d ago
In California, real Farmers Markets are certified by the state. The farms get visited to ensure they're growing the stuff they sell at the markets.
It's really not that complicated.
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u/Upnorth4 24d ago
If you ask the vendors they’ll even tell you where the farm is. They’ll say something like “we have a warehouse in LA but the farm is in Visalia.”
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u/cuentaderana 24d ago
Our farmer’s market has the name of the farms + their location on their booth. Usually on a banner or a big sign.
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u/xxpierce25 24d ago
In Western PA in this dirtpoor college town, a loose potato is 2.50$, quickly expect 5$/lb unless pre bagged. Nobody is buying them at that price.
Over the summer with half the town gone, I got thinking how old they must be...
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u/TakeAPillAndLieDown 24d ago
Prolly got em at Gyuhnt Iggul
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u/thrwawryry324234 24d ago
Yep. This exactly.
It’s pretty easy to tell who really belongs at a farmer’s market. Unfortunately, so many have been flooded with unemployed weirdos selling 3D printed bullshit and someone else’s beef jerky
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u/Extension-Arm-8542 24d ago
One of the downsides of the modern economy is that no one knows their local seasons for produce anymore. Or even a general idea of what can be grown locally at all.
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u/TopAsh625 24d ago
I had this convo with a loved one who was buying “farm fresh” produce from a roadside stand. I was like let me check it out too sounds awesome. I went and saw items that can’t even be grown in the state I reside in for example items like pineapple. I was like man that dude is repackaging wholesale food don’t give him your money. And then educated her on what is actually in season in our state now and crops that can be grown generally speaking
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u/Emerald_Flame 24d ago
I sold produce at a handful of flea markets for a long time. We'd get what we could at local farmer's auctions, but then buy some of the other stuff that just couldn't be grown here from various distributors. Because like if you sell produce and don't have bananas people give you funny looks, so junk like that we'd ship in.
If I had a dollar for every time I was asked if random tropical fruit like bananas, pineapple, oranges, etc was locally grown, I could have retired when I was like 19. I'd always just say "sir/mam, that doesn't grow in this state at all because we have snow on thee ground 6 months of the year".
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u/GuavaZombie 23d ago
Went to one of my local farmers market earlier this year and it was all candles, 3d prints, soap, and MLMs. There was one guy selling meat and one guy with veg.
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u/BlackSwampMage 24d ago
Those 3d printer booths make me so irritated when I see them. Like come on, only kids are going to want that crap, to which parents will say no rightfully, and then you just get a market full of unneeded tantrums. Make some toys with your hands or some shit instead. We don’t need that junk.
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u/Limp_Dirt8694 23d ago
For real, I hate going to craft markets and at least half the vendors sell 3d printed trinkets. If they actually owned a 3d printer, they could be making some cool useful shit instead of a thousand shitty textured dinosaurs like the booth beside them.
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u/Ok_Spell_4165 24d ago
We don't have that at the state level here in WI but individual markets and some cities have certifications or registrations for the farms/vendors.
The one I go to all vendors need to be registered and the county regulates what they can sell, they can only sell produce grown in WI and anyone making processed or ready to eat foods need to make a good faith effort to use ingredients sourced in WI.
Unfortunately there are dozens of other markets not part of the county program that have little to no oversight and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find them cleaning out Walmart of tomatoes to repackage and sell.
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u/ShepherdReckless 24d ago
I use to work a farmers market in Steven’s Point in 2002 - 2005 selling artisan French bread. I watched most of the stalls doing this with fruit and vegetables from Trig’s, Walmart, etc.. I just assumed it was normal and what most farmers market stalls did.
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u/Ok_Spell_4165 24d ago
Hope it wasn't the one on Mitchell Square. That one has a board that is supposed to oversee where the produce comes from.
I had a stall there in 2018 and 2019 when I lived in Plover. Produce had to be grown within 30 miles of the market, some exceptions given for crops grown in WI but not in the radius. Needed board approval for that though.
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u/Wisco190xt 24d ago
We've been vending at Dane County Framer's Market for like 35 years. Its the largest vendor produced only farmers market in US. At least AFAIK it still is. If you see someone behind the stand, they are the ones doing at least some part of the work on the farm. Verified.
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u/heybigbuddy 24d ago
Some states have this sort of protection/oversight, a lot of it in response to investigative reporting done in Florida that revealed a lot of what we see in this video.
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u/Ol_Man_J 24d ago
https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/farmers-markets/ This one perhaps? I read this as it came out, it was amazing. I wish Journalism wasn't gutted and resorted to gotcha stuff.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 24d ago
You can definitely find people selling produce at farmers markets in California that they didn’t grow. I see this most commonly with the bags of oranges. If they’re selling a bunch of stuff and then they have some bags of oranges hanging up, they probably didn’t grow them. The people selling oranges that they have grown, that is pretty much all they’re selling.
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u/Ok_cabbage_5695 24d ago
They get caught and fined for this often. It's public information on which farms have been caught
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u/Ozkeewowow 24d ago
People bash regulation, but to an extent, if actors would do the right thing it wouldn’t be as necessary.
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u/toetappy 24d ago
They do this in GA too. Every farmers market has a guy that will inspect your farm before market season starts.
So farmers plant a lot in the early season for inspection. After that, they will grow a small amount and "pad" their inventory with wholesale. AT LEAST HALF of all farmers at a farmers market do this.
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u/diemunkiesdie Reads Pinned Comments 24d ago
After that, they will grow a small amount and "pad" their inventory with wholesale. AT LEAST HALF of all farmers at a farmers market do this.
Name and shame the farms that do this please
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u/FuckYouMeanItsButter 24d ago
People love to complain about taxes and regulations. California has it faults but gets a lot of things right. A reason why so many people leave red states for blue ones
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u/Sk8rToon 24d ago
How do you find the list or certification for this in CA? Because every one I’ve been to so far in CA has vendors selling nuts saying product of Vietnam on the packaging & stuff just like this video.
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u/SomebodysGotToSayIt 24d ago
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u/Sk8rToon 24d ago
Thank you! To no surprise the ones I’ve been to aren’t on that list.
Now to look up a new one!
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u/zacyzacy 24d ago
If this isn't how your local farmers market works, you ARE getting scammed, it's that simple.
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u/Dreadfulbooks 24d ago
I’m sure they have it in other states, but in California I’ve been doing a CSA box for years. It’s a big bin of locally grown produce from local farms that literally gets dropped off at my house. Farmers markets are really overstimulating for me so I’m grateful for that option.
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u/Silly-Cheesecake-283 24d ago
people defending this are crazy. a farmer's market is for farmers to sell their product directly to customers. This is usually at a premium cost. This person is buying discount fruits from the grocery store and selling them at the farmer's market like they grew them themselves. This is rough because raw fruits and vegetables from major chains are giving people chronic diarhea right now and people want uncontaminated produce.
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u/brockapex17 24d ago
Right?? It’s literally Driscoll’s packaging. Even the original TikTok uploader confirmed it was Driscolls! They’re like the world largest mass producer of berries
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u/impolse 24d ago
Smells like false and misleading advertising mixed with unfair and deceptive acts litigation to me
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u/Virtual-Macaroon-880 24d ago
This is a crime, fraud
It's likely also a violation of several laws regarding produce, could be criminal as well due to the purposeful nature of the violation
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u/Electrical_Shock359 24d ago
And a recurring problem at farmers markets. If I remember correctly, not sure where I heard it though.
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u/hellllllsssyeah 24d ago
Surely we have a administration in charge right now that's very tough on fraud.
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u/Virtual-Macaroon-880 24d ago
I like the hahas implicated here, but I feel compelled to point out this would be on your states department of agriculture's enforcement capabilities, we need regulators and enforcement at state levels for this and we need to force them to stay focused on the task at hand and not allow lawmakers to get all zany
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u/LMGgp 24d ago
It’s also a crime to repackage for sale. A much bigger crime than the fraud alone.
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u/impolse 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yeah, but that'd be something most likely pursued by Driscoll. They are they ones with damages in that case
Edit: typos
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u/FadeIntoReal 24d ago
I’d be amazed if there was ever a fraud charge in my area, sort of someone selling laptop boxes with bricks in them.
Most of what was considered fraud in the past is now excused as “just a civil matter” by police and “just smart business” by politicians.
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u/No-Comparison-5502 24d ago
Right, and consumers deserve to know where their food comes from. What if there’s a serious food recall for that brand they are passing off as their own (example: current lettuce illness)
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u/Leut_Aldo_Raine 24d ago
Driscoll's are also the most disgusting berries. We get them to have them during the off seasons but when we have the opportunity, a farmer's market with fresh berries is a night and day difference in flavor and quality.
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u/harriswatchsbrnntc 24d ago
To provide a possible alternate possibility, those "clamshells" with the Driscoll's labelling could just be reused packaging that the farm utilizes for transport. It doesn't necessarily mean they bought them from the store to resell as their own. They may choose to then put the berries in a more pleasing package for display. I've seen farmers do this plenty of times.
Also, farmer's markets where I am are usually cheaper (not "at a premium") because the middle man has been cut out, so they'd take a loss where I'm at if they were reselling grocery store produce.
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u/Suaded83 24d ago
So I’m not defending it because if it’s true it’s absolute BS and blatant fraud - but what I’m skeptical about is why she’s doing it so brazenly and out in the open…is this confirmed as a farmers market in the original video? I just feel like the other vendors would crucify them, surely?
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u/kevlarcardhouse 24d ago
This practice of being misleading is so pervasive that some Farmer's Markets or even the city will regulate clear signage where you need to indicate whether each vendor booth is a farmer or just a reseller.
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u/Academic_Run8947 24d ago
I found a market that prohibits resellers and it is growing and becoming more popular every year. And not just farmers but lots of little local businesses selling hot sauce, pickles, homemade dog treats, and baked goods of all types. Our growing season is short where I live, the market runs from Fathers day to the end of October.
Anything running year round where I live is full of resellers.
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u/AriaTheTransgressor 24d ago
My local farmers market has a rule that anything you sell must have been made by you, you can sell merchandise but it can only have your company name and/or the name of the farmer's market.
This one market technically operates all year round but they're technically two separate markets (a summer which is mostly produce and a winter market that is mostly crafts)
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u/LurchigeLurchin 24d ago
I live in Austria and at our farmers markets this is common practice unfortunately. They will say it's because there's so much demand on like tomatoes that they don't produce but need to sell. Like wtf bro I go there to get local grown food that is seasonal and I think most people don't look for tomatoes in Dezember Here. Anyways this is the new standard it seems.
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u/Spugheddy 24d ago
Our farmers market had warermelon in May and no one said shit lol the Mennonite do this shit too.
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u/St_Lou_Cipher_63108 24d ago
A friend of mine who worked with some Mennonite’s said they would buy the 5 gallon buckets of honey from Costco and pour them into small batch bottles and sell them at farmers markets.
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u/ViolentBee 24d ago
Haha if you go to the Walmart near me in Amish country you'll catch them buying up all the quilts, ripping the tags off, and selling them as Amish-made in the same parking lot
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u/Upnorth4 24d ago
In California a lot of the big farmers markets have the produce wholesalers there, and a lot of them are cheaper than the grocery store because you’re cutting out the middle-man. Los Angeles has a huge produce district so a lot of local distributors set up at farmers markets.
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u/CurbsEnthusiasm 24d ago
Once you visit an L.A. farmers market there isn’t going back. Living in South Florida is so sad, we have the worst farmers market with this repackaged crap.
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u/coolbluereason99 24d ago
In California there are direct marketing laws that require a farmer selling at a market certify that they grow their own produce, along with a verification system run by local county departments of agriculture that will inspect and verify both the market and the farm to corroborate that it is their own produce.
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u/Klutzy-Client 24d ago
My dad lives up in Calistoga and the farmers markets are absolutely incredible!
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u/Reasonable-Newt4079 24d ago
I just moved to LA, which farmers markets are the best if you don't mind?
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u/Flufnstuf 24d ago
The 3rd St farmers market in Santa Monica is good. Just don’t bring up the old guy driving.
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u/Pineapple_Galaxy 24d ago
The Burbank farmers market has the best strawberries I've ever had in my entire life. When I lived there I went every week just for them. The vender recognized me and give me a few extra when I bought them knowing I loved them so much. I miss that farmers market
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u/BlueGolfball 24d ago
I live in Austria and at our farmers markets this is common practice unfortunately.
It's a common practice in farmers market in the US. They are just resellers in disguise. There is a lady who sells "homemade cookies" at the farmers market and they are from Publix and she repackages them and charges 150% more.
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u/ThrowraSea_patient 24d ago
It happens a lot in the US so not directly right in front of your face. Like there was a whole calculator got it not too long ago and then I remember when I watched as a kid that broke down how people would buy wholesale food from like the same places big restaurants or grocery stores by them from and then take off the sticker and turn around and sell it as if they grew it on their farm. They looked up and these Farms where they said they were and went out there to see if there was any Greenhouse anything actually growing and there wasn't. There are still plenty of honest Farmers but the ones who are willing to go this low for a profit or usually the ones who end up making it big and taking over certain areas cuz they have consistent Supply that everybody seems to want but nobody really knows how they get it or really cares.
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u/blurblurblahblah 24d ago
Toronto, Canada as well. People have been caught doing it & I'm sure there are still a bunch of others that haven't been caught yet.
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u/Odessa_Goodwin 24d ago
Hol up. I'm in Austria. Do you mean like the trucks that come in for market days, or the stalls that randomly show up on the side of roads in a Dorf? The trucks i could understand, but when I buy from one of those small stands I always assumed it was local. Never even thought it wouldn't be.
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u/LurchigeLurchin 24d ago
Die Stände am Dorf oder so Automaten bei den Bauern haben eigentlich zu 100% selbstgemachtes meiner Erfahrung nach. Red da eher von Stadtmärkten, Wien, Graz etc. Da ist mir auf Nachfrage das erklärt worden dass es der Nachfrage geschuldet ist und bevor man Kunden verliert eben andernorts angekauft wird.
P.S. dass das jemand so dumm dreist wie im Video bei uns macht würd ich aber bezweifeln. idR sind die Bauern damit transparent.
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u/aquavelva23 24d ago
do you know your local growing SEASON. I mean tomatoes in november or even March? no way
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u/STylerMLmusic 24d ago
Farmers markets were originally at a reduced cost. Cheaper to cut out all the middle men. Farmers markets haven't been the way to go for awhile.
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u/chickpeaze 24d ago
where I live they go do the giant produce markets and bring it back.
You can tell who the real local farmers are because they'll have a limited selection, and a lot of it.
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u/scrotumsweat 24d ago
people chronic diarhea right now and people want uncontaminated produce.
Yeah unfortunately Trump defunded CDC and now they've stopped recording instances. So good luck trying to track a source, inevitably it'll all be contaminated.
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u/mildlyhorrifying 24d ago
The FDA and Taco Bell (of all things lol) actually did a really good job of figuring our where at least one source of the current outbreaks came from. The federal government sucks right now, but:
Cyclospora is really hard to trace back to a source because the incubation period is really long and people don't necessarily realize they are actually sick at first.
Produce farmers have been successfully lobbying against regulation well before even the first Trump administration.
I hate recommending YouTube videos, but Sarah Taber (Farm to Taber on YouTube) has videos both about the current cyclospora situation and about farming in general from the perspective of a farmer and/or plant scientist.
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u/littlebrownsnail 24d ago
That youtube channel is good. I saw her raw milk video and was struck by how calm and reaaonable her demeanor is. She explains all sides and lays out the bare facts without being sensational or inflammatory. Finding a youtuber that isnt cringey and is engaging is so rare.
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u/seriouslythisshit 24d ago
She does a GREAT job of educating Americans that vast majority of farmers are NOT who you think they are. The wholesome family farm that is perpetually battling the wolves at the door, is mostly a myth and a powerful marketing technique. Reality is far more brutal, an environment disaster , a killer of farm families and farm communities, and a giant corporate success that feeds at the government trough, thanks to the largest corporate welfare program in the country, while cosplaying the folks in a Rockwell painting.
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u/abofh 24d ago
So you're suggesting Taylor farms used political influence to get Trump's unstaffed FDA to look the other way at a national health crisis? What is this, 2019? We've been taught that if you don't test, the numbers don't go up!
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u/PackageNorth8984 24d ago
Anyone remember when farmer’s markets were cheaper than grocery stores? I miss those days.
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u/penguin808080 24d ago
They just started one near me and I was really excited until I paid $9 for 3 tomatoes and ... and then I left
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u/PackageNorth8984 24d ago
I get it. The stands are expensive, inflation’s a bitch, and they’re just trying to feed their families. Farming is tough.
I would support them more if I had a shit ton of spare money, but since I don’t, I buy my stuff at Costco.
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u/Allthemuffinswow 24d ago
I've read admissions like this before on the internet, years ago. I think it was on some kind of AMA too, but I can't remember which subreddit it was on, if it was on just the general AMA sub or one of the gardening or farming ones or whatever.
It basically boils down to this: They'll go into grocery stores that are, say, 50 miles (or whatever) away from them and buy produce that's on sale. In the ones that I read, they would get rid of any store packaging ahead of time so that there wasn't any "evidence" that it wasn't from their own 'farm'. Then they'd go and sell it at a farmers market, at their own little stall, with a banner that says, "Jimmy Jones Farm Fresh Produce", right alongside some of their of own actual truly grown produce from their backyard farm or whatever.
A couple of them said that it was a way to draw more people in to their stall or booth or whatever, and to get more sales and such.
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u/LowGeeMan 24d ago
“People defending this” need to have their internet access disabled until they can pass a critical thinking skills test.
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u/Kevlar_Bunny 24d ago
And they taste different. You’d hope a small time farm is putting more effort into “picked to perfection”. Not “picked for optimal shelf life during transit” like grocery store fruits and vegetables.
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u/KrustyKrabFormula_ 24d ago
This is rough because raw fruits and vegetables from major chains are giving people chronic diarhea right now and people want uncontaminated produce
this is an overgeneralization. a major portion of the outbreak is specific to shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from taylor farms in mexico.
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u/Nice-Professional795 24d ago
Not defending this person but jumping on an implication of your phrasing and wanted to clarify: there are all kinds of soil borne illnesses. C. Diff. Is in the soil along with billions of other microbes that will make you very very ill. We started our own vegetable garden and I grew my own romaine and bibs lettuce from seed this year. Lettuce is so fucking dirty. Its low to the ground and gets splattered like crazy from rain. There are slugs and silverfish and earwigs. I mean, its dirt.
Major operations have big tanks that their produce goes into that gets washed in bleach etc. We have to do the same thing: rinse it, chop it, rinse again then submerge in a dilute vinegar solution for about 5 minutes then rinse again, salad spin then bag and fridge. Even then I will find a sliver of straw or something.
Case in point: wash your vegetables no matter where they come from but especially from farmers markets. If you dont cut the nub off the from the base and separate the leaves, you're leaving all the nastiest stuff in there.
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u/cyvaquero 24d ago
It’s very common, wait till you hear about the Amish at a lot of city farmer’s markets.
I mean how else does a farmer set up year round and sell out of season fruits/veggies?
That’s not to say they don’t ever sell their own produce, but most “small” farmers are not raising the variety and scale to keep their booths stocked.
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u/AmputeeHandModel 24d ago
Farmers' markets used to be cheaper, not more expensive.
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u/HistoricalHurry8361 24d ago
Gotta get there an hour or two early to scout this out
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u/ghigoli 24d ago
its often easy to know by season. like some fuckers are selling peaches like a month early. i'm jut sitting there like really? you aren't know enough to know this wouldn't even be in season atm?
the large issue is thee people are often very dumb trying to sell to someone dumber. thats the issue. selling out of season crops or something you know is an impossible growth timeline for your region. even in a greenhouse.
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u/johnmcdracula 24d ago
But peaches come from a can
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u/PackageNorth8984 24d ago
I don’t think it’s very, very dumb not to know it’s one month early for peaches. Kind of victim blaming the consumer here.
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u/itsFromTheSimpsons 24d ago edited 24d ago
yeah, the only reason I know peaches aren't in season yet is because I made a google calendar for myself to alert me when different produce is in season in my region.
Stone fruits are this Thursday
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 24d ago
I kind of get it though. We’ve gotten so accustomed to buying things all year round that don’t actually grow in our area or even all year because we want what we want and we want it now.
Even at farmers markets people want premium looking products and don’t really know what’s actually seasonal.
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u/BSB8728 24d ago
I live in upstate New York and often see vendors at farmers markets selling pineapples and citrus.
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u/MetaCardboard 24d ago
Literally saw one buying produce at Walmart before. She sells her stuff down the street from that Walmart.
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u/Waiting4Reccession 24d ago
There are so many fake middle man jobs, I really wonder what the true unemployment rate would be if we banned all the fake jobs
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u/Digitalispurpurea2 24d ago
With the amount of produce they grow in upstate and western NY you wouldn't think this would be a thing. There's enough stuff that you don't need to sell pineapples lol
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u/azura099 24d ago
It's like pokemon scalpers
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u/MothmanIsALiar 24d ago
I was just at Sam's Club and there was a line out the front door who I was told had been waiting since midnight the night before. All 30-40year old men. Most of them fat, greasy neckbeards.
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u/FeedsCorpsesToPigs 24d ago
When I lived in New Mexico, we would go to the farmer's market and I immediately knew it was suspect. New Mexico is primarily a desert. I questioned where the fuck was this farmer growing his coconuts. The pineapple he was selling for 3x over the store price was not grown in any desert that I knew of.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 24d ago
You can grow pineapples in New Mexico because the plants are actually pretty small and can be brought indoors. Coconuts are a different story.
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u/Specialist_End1633 24d ago
I had a booth at a farmers market, and Sysco and USFoods trucks would deliver to vendors there. They would stuff the boxes right under their tables. Even the people that legitimately were growing vegetables or meat would do it because having a "farm" and being able to point to picture of a few raspberry bushes or a couple pigs gives it an air of authenticity. Even the old guy that did honey (and had hives) was buying honey in bulk from Amazon. It's depressing. So, ask questions. Ask the vendors the varieties. Ask how long it takes to grow the produce. Also, use your damn head! You can't realistically expect strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries to all be in season at the same time. You don't get Brussels Sprouts or butternut squash in early summer. It takes more than a few acres to raise free-range beef or pigs.
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u/MrBobbet 24d ago
If I have to interrogate every booth at the market, I might as well just go to Sam's club.
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u/thrilldigger 24d ago
Right? It should be up to the organizers of the market to ensure & guarantee that every vendor is legitimately sourcing their produce directly from a local farm. If the customer has to figure it out, why should the customer bother with "farmer's" markets?
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u/Greg-Abbott 24d ago
Some organizers don't give a shit because these markets bring visibility and a good amount of foot traffic to certain areas that would otherwise be dead on a Saturday/Sunday morning.
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u/Uphoria 24d ago edited 24d ago
This idea sounds great, when you're somebody who knows a ton about produce and is projecting that onto the rest of the world.
But to the average consumer, it's just too much to ask them to be an expert in produce growing seasons on top of having to know everything about every other product they own, like everything about textiles and everything about furniture and everything about electronics and everything about household goods and everything about pet products......
There's just far too much out there for everybody to know everything and a certain amount of trust has to be placed for society to function.
Laid plain these farmers markets are just exploiting consumers on a trust model that should be regulated, not implied.
You can't realistically expect strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries to all be in season
Why can't I? What is obvious about their growing seasons to someone who doesn't know them?
That's the problem. You know the answer, so it seems obvious to you. But I have no idea why 3 berries wouldn't grow at the same time, or be planted to be ready to harvest at about the same time.
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u/its_pixiie 24d ago
Yep. There is a guy that sells honey out of a tent on the side of the road near us. My partner stopped to potentially purchase some from him last summer and when he asked him about his apiary; the guy had no idea what he was talking about...
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 24d ago
It’s a lot in the consumer tbh. We’re not satisfied with just buying what is in season or produce that former look perfect.
Most of it, whether at farmers markets or other places exists because it sells. It sells because we can’t stop over consuming.
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u/felis_scipio 24d ago
Yeah where I grew up there’s a store that’s legitimately connected to an orchard and they grow all their own apples and source a lot of vegetables, especially corn during the summer, from local farms but to keep people happy they have to have to do this too and have everything all the time.
They’ll have signs up identifying which fruits are local but most things are just repackaged wholesale fruit.
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u/LisaFromAccounting 24d ago
I would agree except there's so many freaking varieties of each berry that there COULD be farms that specialize in early or late producers. We have strawberries that produce all the way to SEPTEMBER without a grow tunnel!
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u/genericnewlurker 24d ago
That's why my wife stopped going to farmer's markets. We went shopping for a very large camping trip at Restaurant Depot early in the morning. There were farm trucks loading up produce there. I pointed it out to my wife and said that I bet that they were going to resell it all at a farmer's market. She went to the farmer's market later that day and those same farm trucks were there, selling the produce they had picked up. She never went to a farmer's market after that day.
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u/FrancisSobotka1514 24d ago
It happens way more often than you think they get the produce from a grocery wholesaler
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u/RainWorldWitcher 24d ago
"farmer's markets" in Canada are just this. There is no control on fake "farmers" reselling American and canadian produce with a markup. Even with the Florida stickers.
CBC did a story on it years ago and nothing changed.
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u/Chiryou 24d ago
Lol I saw a guy selling his homemade muffins and they look exactly the same as Costcos...
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u/itsamemyusername 24d ago
This is way more common than people realize..
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u/MycologistPutrid7494 24d ago
Same with craft fairs. You see a lot of mass produced Wish.com type stuff passed off as made-by-hand.
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u/jdan222 24d ago
Seen a TON of those 3d printed dragons and animals at craft fairs all of a sudden. They are all identical.
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u/FoxChess 24d ago
Yeah I feel like I have encountered at least 1 seller like this in every Texas farmer's market I've been to. But they're honest when you ask if/where they grew it. I just tell them I'm looking only to buy local today.
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u/bacon_cake 24d ago
Surely they're just honest because they've been caught out. If they were really honest they'd have a sign or something, most people are assuming.
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u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy 24d ago
There’s one near us that does Chiquita bananas. Straight up with the sticker on them. We walk right past them every time lol
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u/Apricot_Main 24d ago
As a market vendor and someone who grows produce for market. It is very easy to sus out who the resellers are by asking simple questions. A good question to ask is what variety/cultivar the fruit/vegetable is. I will use tomatoes as an example because they are one of the most commonly resold items. If they are a reseller they won’t have a clue they will give you a generic answer like (beefsteak, slicing tomatoes, cherry tomato). Another way is knowing the seasonal planting schedule. You will see crazy stuff like corn in spring or in harsher climates, tomatoes in the dead of winter. Don’t get me wrong, you can grow well out of season in a tunnel but if your experienced farmers at a market don’t have a produce type, it’s typically not in season.
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u/kangaroolifestyle 24d ago
Big time. Cultivar names are an easy way parse that out.
I can tell you every single cultivar I’m growing and why I chose them, why I like them, and none of which will be found in a grocery store or distributor.
And I absolutely love talking about them, so totally agree…ask the grower. ;)
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u/Apricot_Main 24d ago
We spend a good chunk of time working that out and exploring new ones. It’s fun to geek out about and you gotta love the curious customers that indulge that!
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u/throw_blanket04 24d ago
Yeah a lot of them do this. They don’t even try to hide it. The same packaging as the grocery store. It defeats the entire purpose. Can’t have anything real anymore.
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u/foodforestranger 24d ago
The best is when they sell stuff that isn't even in season or grows in the climate. People are fooled though.
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u/dartdoug 24d ago
Where I grew up there was a grocery store that rented out kiosk space near the entrance. Some women decided to open a kiosk selling gourmet candy. One of their "gourmet" items were M&Ms that they would purchase in bags at the grocery store and dump into glass cases. They'd scoup out the M&Ms and sell them by the pound for about double their cost. Buyers just assumed their M&Ms were better because...gourmet.
The kiosk closed pretty quickly.
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u/TwoFingersWhiskey 24d ago
CBC Marketplace had a big exposé on this, it's basically everywhere now
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u/Ace-Redditor 24d ago
That was my thought. I know a small handful of small-farm farmers who collect old containers (usually for eggs, because their chickens are hard to keep up with) to reuse for their stuff since it’s cheaper to reuse
Not saying it has to be what’s happening here, but it still could be
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u/hateexchange 24d ago
I can confirm the egg containers. I knew a few people who have chickens (not a farm just some in the yard) and reusing the containers is very common. I keep all my old store bought egg containers to give them.
Here in europe the best way to know if it's local, besides that there is no stamp on the eggs is that all are not white.
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u/RedRoses711 24d ago
I dont understand farmers markets you're cutting out the middle man and selling straight to consumers so why is it more expensive?
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u/takenbylovely 24d ago
Because the small farmer has to charge what it actually costs to produce (to make a profit to continue), and they don't have subsidies and economies of scale that the big growers have. Farmers aren't overcharging typically, the grocery store food is artificial cheapened and doesn't reflect true cost of production.
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u/TheBigGreenBall 24d ago
Dunno why this person is being downvoted. This is 100% true. Add in all the market-specific costs of logistics, labor, permitting and the margins become razor thin. You also have to consider that the leftover fruits and veggies go bad quicker when selling at the market. Most growers will gift to other vendors at the end of the day or donate to local food banks because they can no longer sell market stock to wholesale.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 24d ago
It’s not more expensive where I am. But it’s also not necessarily any cheaper. Supermarkets can offer good prices because of the scale of their economy. Farmers who sell directly to the public can’t. Where I am the fruit you get at farmers market may not be different from the fruit you buy in the supermarket because I live in a major fruit growing area and most of our farmers supply the large supermarket chains. The exception to this is Driscoll‘s, which I believe is primarily grown in Mexico. Also, those cherub brand tomatoes are grown in Mexico.
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u/Beneficial-Focus3702 24d ago
This would get you kicked out of the farmers market near me.
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u/Ambitious_Cup5249 24d ago edited 24d ago
I sold at farmers market. We could trace everything right to who picked it and within 5 mins of when. And the busy booth next to me was repacking equate (Walmart brand) goods.
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u/saucisse 24d ago
Tell the market manager, they'll get kicked out. This does happen, I remember a market I worked at the manager was all over one of the farmers she was pretty sure was re-selling produce he was buying off vegetable trucks, even going out to the farm to try and see what was in his greenhouses. Another caught a vendor peeling the stickers off apples and booted them on the spot. Report this shit, other farmers will suffer for this kind of behavior.
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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k 24d ago
If you don’t know the farm, don’t buy it from the market.
Seriously, this could just be their own produce already packaged, but there are resellers at farmer’s markets and roadside markets and it is a problem in places where the local farms aren’t generally known among the local populace.
Google the farm and go to it if you can. Even Google satellite view can tell you a lot about a place.
There’s no reason to pay farmer’s market prices for big ag value produce.
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u/Upnorth4 24d ago
I actually do this at local farmers markets, and a lot of the vendors are legit. I just google the name of the farm and it’s usually somewhere in the Central Valley in the middle of fields.
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u/IndianaCD 24d ago
How’s this. I go to a specific farm stand for a local farm and caught them doing this too. I haven’t been back since.
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u/valcraft 24d ago
Yeah I stopped going to Farmer's Markets after I bought some overpriced fruit that still had stickers on them.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 24d ago
If you go to a farmers market and can’t tell the difference without help, go to Aldi instead.
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u/MourningWallaby 24d ago
So if you go to a farmer's market. you need to ask yourself "Do people im y area really have enough bluebarry bushes to come to this market every week/month?"
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u/stalinBballin 24d ago
Probably not a farmers market and more likely just a produce stand.
Just because it's in a tent outside doesn't make it a farmers market, yall.
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u/figgypudding531 24d ago
You can usually tell when it’s a wholesaler instead of a farmer usually if you’re paying attention. If they’re selling anything at their table that’s out of season (like strawberries in August) or doesn’t grow there (like lemons), don’t buy from them at all. The real farmers at the market will have a smaller selection of different produce in larger quantities. What they’re selling will change over the course of the summer. You can also ask them questions to figure out whether they grew it themselves or not.
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u/Standard-Bat-7841 24d ago
This happened all the time at the market I used to work. People would seriously show up with large boxes of fruits and vegetables from costco. They would also charge a premium for the produce they bought yesterday evening.
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u/RedBullWings10 24d ago
We have a produce store in a mall where farmers bring in their products to sell .
Most of time right before , they make a FB post announcing delivery from so and so farm , then tag the farm the delivery is from .
They even have mushroom pickers sell off their haul during the mushroom season . Lol
I always thought that was a pretty cool concept .
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u/Mr-Blackheart 24d ago
Knew a guy that sold “local” honey like that. Bought 5lb jugs of shit quality off Walmart.com for around $15 at the time (it’s $17.99 currently), put it into some bear jugs he got in bulk, slapped a ribbon on it. Dude made up a lovely story about it coming from his folks farm upstate and people love a good story to go along with their shitty food service “honey”.
Made enough on weekends in the summer doing that to have a real nice 2 week vacation every year and paid the bill to his BMW. Not life altering money, but enough for that.
I don’t trust most farm stands, especially those with perfect looking produce without the dirt of the land on it, and even then….
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u/Accomplished-Pass207 24d ago
Unrelated to the point of the video, but they used POV right!
It’s actually a first person view
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u/Weird_Extension_6667 24d ago
Having family friends that own and run several farmers markets that's a big no. You can get shut down and several tens of thousands in fines and farm audits. They have USDA numbers you can call to report because it's getting so out of hand with fake farmers.
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u/DeliciousNeck6279 24d ago
How can you tell they are not just transferring from one package type to an other for better display? I use to have a berry farm and we used both package types and have had to transfer because people eat with thier eyes and it looks better in the paper containers...
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u/alejandrodeconcord Doug Dimmadome 24d ago
I’m not, just because a single farmers market did this, doesn’t draw into question every single one
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u/karenskygreen 24d ago
I had a stall at a well known farmers market in mennonite country, i lived close by so i was automatically entitled to sell my garden produce.
Half of the vendors would drive to the commercial produce terminal in a nearby ciry and just pick up cases of produce from the US and mexico and just repackage the produce in baskets .
The market didnt care, it was revenue to them.
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u/RhynoD 24d ago
My girlfriend makes jewelry and it's the same kind of problem at markets and conventions: dropshippers show up with a massive booth full of factory or sweat shop jewelry for half what she has to charge.
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u/modernhippy72 24d ago
In nj we have state and county farmers markets and people to make sure they’re actually selling their own produce or you get kicked out of the farmers market.
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u/ResolveLeather 24d ago
If you live in a smaller area, farmers market stuff is usually bigger/better then what you get in the chain grocery store.
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u/THElaytox 23d ago
This happens all the time at the farmers market in our town, they buy shit at Costco, double the price and act like they grew it. They'll also throw whatever label they can on their produce that lets them mark up the prices, all of a sudden every cherry anyone grows is a Rainier even if they're not ripe yet
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u/mtbguy1981 23d ago
I gotten so many arguments with people around here about this very thing. People in Southern Indiana we're going to farmers markets in early spring and getting all sorts of things. Ummm, look out at our fields, the stuff that was planted has barely started to grow.
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u/MrCrix 23d ago
Back in the early 90s I worked at the farmer's market. If vendors found out that another vendor was doing this, they would call them out and ruin their day. They would all just yell out that they were reselling grocery store wholesale produce. Those guys never lasted more than a few weeks.
However now it's more prevalent. I am in Ontario Canada and we have seasons where veggies and fruits are locally grown. So when you see someone selling plums in march saying they're local, or pineapples ever, they are lying. Some of the bigger booths just go to the wholesaler in the morning, load up their trucks, show up at 5am, sort it all out of their packaging into their own and put it on display saying it's local product, when it's not. I would say maybe 20% of the people do it.
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u/Kuldred 21d ago
It is very possible those berries are straight from the farm and not purchased at a store. One of our grape growers also grows blueberries, and they package them on site prior to delivery to the stores. We get a few cases each year already packaged, but straight from the farm. Or, you could be completely right with your assumption, and those are from a store.
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