Why Chinatown groceries have cheaper produce.

[randomness]

Half an hour ago I heard a story on NPR explaining why produce is so much cheaper at Chinatown vendors and Asian groceries than it is at regular supermarkets. I had noticed the difference in ripeness and prices and it was useful to get the reasons explained.

The story is long, and has plenty of local color--from New York Chinatown--but it boils down to two points:

1) Asians buy produce daily, or at least more often than other Americans, so Chinatown vendors can buy riper produce. Regular supermarket chains pay more for unripe produce because it has a longer shelf life. Asian groceries have customers who will be using the produce sooner, so they can buy the cheaper produce which is much closer to being overripe.

2) Asians cook more, so they buy more produce. This means the Asian grocers also move a greater volume of produce, enabling them to buy in bulk, and thus pay less.

The take-away from this is that if you want cheap, ripe produce, get it from the Asian vendors. But it'll go bad more quickly.

(Up here in Boston, Haymarket also sells a lot of produce which is just this side of going bad, and it is also quite cheap, probably for similar reasons.)

Comments

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I always buy my produce at Asian grocery stores -- I usually use it quickly or want it to be a bit ripe when I make jams and jellies. The only exception to the ripeness rule is cabbage -- I've found that cabbage is usually underripe and keeps for a while.

Then again...it's cabbage. Where can it go, really...

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that one. In fact, I just went to Chinatown yesteday and got bok choy cabbage. Always keeps quite awhile for me:)

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the post:) Quite informative.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm thinking the expensive, underripe produce in the regular supermarket might have something to do with it being treated with bazillions of chemicals (hey, someone's got to pay for those!) and shipped in from all over.

But maybe I'm just cynical...

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I suspect you are instead being naive, if you think that the produce in Asian groceries is therefore local and biocide-free.

[mahjhongg.livejournal.com]

my culinary school is really down on the way supermarkets provide unripened produce for a higher price, I'm sure the chefs here love outdoor markets in general, but particularly chinatown ones.

[dpolicar]

(nods) In my college days, the weekly haymarket trip was always a bit of a tightrope-walking challenge... you never did know how much food you were going to have to toss by the end of the week.

[esmerel.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this myself - there's a whole lot of asian markets around here, and the produce is easily as good or better quality than the 'regular' grocery stores, and it's pretty much always cheaper.

[midsummernd.livejournal.com]

*just* took a trip to Super 88 with coworkers, and we were wondering the same thing! if you cook the same day you shop (or are a professional chef), it's no big deal, cause it never goes rotten. i cook for myself, and i like my veggies to be fresh, so i'm willing to go to the grocery store multiple times in one week. Unfortunately, Super 88 is just a little too far to be practical on a regular basis.

[jendaviswilson.livejournal.com]

Same with the bodegas around here--the produce is cheap, probably because it is often smaller and not as pretty as the grocery stores.

[flit.livejournal.com]

I wish we had Asian stores in Santa Cruz! Especially since Chinese broccoli is one of my favorite things in the entire world. The produce in general is just fantastic and I'm very envious.

I wonder if I can convince someone at the farmer's market to start growing Chinese broccoli? There are stands there that sell rapini and broccolini, so they're at least getting warm....

Farmer's market produce in general is pretty good here, and there's a dinky little market that sells produce that I'm sure is from the same sources, as they get for example seckel pears, which I only ever see at the farmer's market otherwise.