Let's Get Fresh: 2015 Price Survey
By Bob Workman on August 16, 2015 from Let’s Get Fresh
Before getting to this year’s price survey I want to share with you some exciting news about today’s Market. Today under the Chef’s 
Demo tent we will have the debut of one Chef Tim Urbanic of Café Cimino in Sutton, WV. Chef Tim and his gorgeous wife, Melody, have won numerous Best of West Virginia awards in assorted publications for both their food and hospitality. Today, Tim will be demonstrating a classic Italian side dish, Eggplant Capanota.
Demo tent we will have the debut of one Chef Tim Urbanic of Café Cimino in Sutton, WV. Chef Tim and his gorgeous wife, Melody, have won numerous Best of West Virginia awards in assorted publications for both their food and hospitality. Today, Tim will be demonstrating a classic Italian side dish, Eggplant Capanota.
If you’ve never visited Café Cimino I highly recommend it. It’s a Bed and Breakfast as well so you can save yourself the late night drive home on a full stomach. In addition to a comfortable bed for the night you can pig-out on one of their famous breakfasts the next morning!
Under the Music Tent this week, back by popular demand, are Annie Neeley and David Kirkpatrick. Annie’s powerhouse vocals really knocked folks out back in July. Today they will also have Wayne Woods on banjo and Matt Eakle on guitar. Matt also played the Market a few weeks back with The Grey Agents.
So, on with the Survey.
If you were with us last week you will remember that I reposted the 2014 price survey as a comparison for today. If you’re new to Let’s Get Fresh then I will just say that this is the third year of our price survey. This is a very unscientific survey undertaken by your friendly blogger. One Sunday each August I go around to all the farmers and collect pricing on their basic produce and meat offerings and run them thru the LGF mainframe to get an average price for each item. I then go out and price the same items at two of our larger supermarket chains.
This year the Market had 14 vendors selling produce and 5 selling meat. At least 5 vendors sell each produce item listed in the chart except for apples. As it’s early in the WV apple season only 2 farmers currently have them. At least 4 vendors sell each of the beef items listed. Only 2 of our meat vendors sell pork products.
So, no drastic changes as compared to last year. A few items went up, a few went down on both sides of the ledger, but overall the Market still isn’t twice as high as the supermarkets as many claim. In fact, check out those meat prices. The Market’s prices are almost across the board less than the supers.
*One quick explanation is due here. The Market now has one farmer who has gone through the Certified Naturally Grown (www.naturallygrown.org) certification process. CNG is one of many independent organizations that have sprung up in the last few years offering small farmers a collaborative way to assure their customers that they follow organic practices outside the USDA Organic program. As I wrote about here a couple of years ago it is very difficult, financially, for a small farmer to go through the USDA program. Stay tuned here for a future post from Cheri Postlethwait of Bonds Creek Farm in Ritchie County where she will explain how this program has enhanced her farm.
Until next week, Stay Fresh!
The Bridgeport Farmers Market Association is the seven member all volunteer board of directors that governs the Bridgeport Farmers Market. It is supported by a wonderful group of community volunteers who help in the setup and maintenance of the market. For more information on the Farmers Market or to see how you can help please e-mail us at bridgeportfarmersmarket@yahoo.comor, better yet, LIKE us on Facebook and follow us on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also check out the Market’s own YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/BridgeportFarmersMktor for more BFM video content you can now go to http://vimeo.com/bridgeportfarmersmarket/videos
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