If old novels that I have read are accurate, there was a time in the history of the Anglo world (US, UK, Canada, etc.) when your average small-town farmer could bundle up fresh butter and eggs from their farm, ride to the town grocery store, and trade the butter for hayseed, bread, flour, or whatever product he didn’t produce enough of and that he needed, either by bartering or by selling his wares and then buying the products he needed.
Was this true? If so, approximately when did grocery stores in general stop doing this? Late 1800’s? 1950? Might local, non chain grocery stores in rural areas still do this? I am almost certain that if I were to walk into the local suburban Safeway here TODAY with some flour in a brown paper bag that I claim that I ground myself at home from wheat that my wife and I grew ourselves, the manager will tell me that all their product comes through a national distributor that insures that all wares come from health-inspected facilities or are otherwise officially vetted, not from some hillbilly farmer who walked in from the street.
Is there anywhere in the world where this is still the case?
Yes, I am aware of local farmers’ markets, and those are obviously not directly in scope, but they could be indirectly, if, for example, Food Lion sends agents out to troll farmers markets for local products that are not vertically integrated with their main distribution system.
*Food Lion and Safeway are grocery store chains in my area.
Well, Whole Foods has a program to offer local produce, although I don’t know the mechanics of that. The website mentions, “We are greatly increasing our efforts in this regard by further empowering our individual store and regional buyers to seek out locally grown produce.” So it seems that it’s possible for an individual farmer to offer his goods to an individual store.
Don’t even have to be a small farmer. My parents used to have a big blackberry patch in their backyard. One year they had a HUGE crop, way more than they could use, so they asked their local small-chain grocery store if they’d be interested in buying some. They did, and happily sold them. This was maybe 10 years ago.
Yes, it was true at one time and it wasn’t just farmers. While researching on another topic, I came across a woman and her daughter in 1927 who were on their way to Little Rock to sell/barter butter and eggs to grocers and restaurants. This was supplemental economic activity for those who did this kind of thing. In this case, the women relied on the income of the head of the household who was a carpenter. I don’t really know when this kind of thing stopped but I think it’s an interesting question.
Hannaford is chain of supermarkets in New England that features locally grown produce:
Not as local as farmers selling small quantities of eggs or butter, but I noticed a lot of apples and sweet corn are grown within 20-30 miles, because they are advertised with the farm name and location.
I grew up in rural Louisiana and worked in the only local supermarket during high school during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We bought things from local farmers quite frequently. It was a cash deal and not a barter system so they could use the money for whatever they wanted but much of that would go right back to the store. Watermelons were the most popular items to sell because they grew like crazy locally and they are heavy and not worth transporting when you have good local crops.
It was still a fringe part of the business but it happened a lot when people grew more of something than they could use or give away. The quality standards were still there. The produce buyer only picked the best and some people got turned away because their crop wasn’t good enough even for a small and fairly poor town.
It is funny how this idea has come full circle. It seems obvious that you don’t need to fly things in from South America when the same thing is grown quite well a mile away but large supermarket chains still do it. I worked in the headquarters for a a major New England supermarket chain in the late 1990’s and they never bought from anybody other than major suppliers simply because of contract demands and liability concerns plus consistency of product across the stores.
Makes sense. I’d imagine that most non-casual (e.g. not suburbanites with a 20’x20’ garden area in the backyard), non-sustenance farmers would be selling to distributors who ensured quality and uniformity, e.g. by doing health inspections and packing the product in uniform packaging, and then the distributor would sell to Safeway or Food Lion. I’m imagining walking into Safeway and going to the bread aisle, and seeing all the different national brands, e.g. Wonder Bread, Pepperidge Farm, Schmidt’s, etc. alongside an unmarked brown bag that has been marked “Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Pinkerton, <local address>, 223-555-3221, we make this at home <3” in a scrawl with a felt tip marker. I would guess that that would NOT happen in major stores here in the US nowadays. How do I know that the Pinkertons’ aren’t storing their bread in unsanitary conditions and letting cats pee on it? Did anyone at the store check?
It still happens, although as Shagnasty noted it’s a usually a cash deal rather than barter. Just a few years ago I sold sweet corn to a medium-sized local chain (about a dozen stores) and pumpkins to several mom-n-pop stores. This particular chain was in direct competition with the local Wal-Mart outlets and doing quite well, in part because they agressively promoted their large selection of local produce. At the time, Wal-Mart refused to even talk to local growers, although they’ve since changed that policy. At one point, I noticed that some of the stores were selling the sweet corn for exactly what they paid me…apparently it was some kind of loss leader. They were pretty picky about quality, but paid well and took everything I could produce.
SS
My local organic food store (it is actually a successful local chain of six markets) buys a lot of produce locally from small farmers. Its eggs, bread, some wine, and considerable percentage of fish are local as well. However, these suppliers are not just some guy with a flock of chickens, they are local farmers, fishermen, wineries, and bakeries. Whole Foods, three blocks away, carries almost nothing local. Which is yet another reason I won’t shop there.
In any case it is not a barter system. I doubt whether true barter was a big part of small market/farm life a hundred years ago either. It was probably more like a ledger of accounts, so many dozens of eggs from Mrs. H. applied to her purchase of salt and molasses and rubber boots, everything assigned a dollar value.
Out here, most of our eggs and a lot of our poultry come directly from Hutterite colonies. Some (but not all) have brokers that negotiate prices and such, but the actual eggs go straight from farm to market, even to the Walmart.
I do most of my shopping at a co-op that deals directly with farmers for most of their fresh foods. They carry meats, eggs, cheese, produce and baked treats that come directly from the farm or kitchen.
My store still buys local stuff. There’s only a handful of real farmers left in are area that are small enough to still drive around with pick up trucks full of cauliflower or corn (still hot because it was picked an hour ago), but the customers go crazy for it when we tell them it’s really local, as in, that farm that you’ve passed a hundred times just a few miles away.
Also, we have a few customers that will bring stuff in from their own backyard gardens. Mostly rhubarb and dill and some other random vegetables.
Dierburg’s, a St. Louis chain, carries and advertises locally grown produce during the season. Great corn and other produce from Western Illinois and Eastern Missouri.
My mother sold green beans from her garden to the local grocery store up until 2009, when she slowed down gardening. (The store would still have bought them eagerly.)
And my local CUB/SuperValu chain store, here in the middle of Minneapolis, often had special displays of local produce last summer & fall, with handmade signs giving the name of the farm or orchard that produced them. Those didn’t come thru the chain supply system, but were delivered direct to the store from the local farm or orchard. This may be by an agreement with the store manager & the local farm or orchard. But the corporate chain seems to allow this – I have seen similar displays at other SuperValu stores, from different local suppliers.
But in many locations, there are ‘farmers markets’ on weekends, where this kind of local produce is sold. Plus some farms are contracting with city folk, to sell them in advance a box of in-season produce delivered each week.