Prices are higher but food is better, customers say
If you had less than $50 dollars to spend on groceries this week – the amount that low-income New Yorkers receive in nutritional assistance – would you spend $5 on a dozen eggs? How about $10 on a pound of ground beef? Some Bronx residents who see those relatively high prices as an investment in their health say they do.
On a sunny Saturday morning, the corner of 138th Street and Alexander Avenue is buzzing. Giant pumpkins, sourdough bread, greens, carrot cakes, eggs and ears of corn get snapped off of tables and whisked into shopping bags. The South Bronx Farmers Market is having its busiest year since local residents started it three years ago, out of frustration with the lack of fresh food in area stores. In its first year the market had three vendors. Now there are seven, along with two stalls for cooking demonstrations.
”Nowhere else in the South Bronx can you find locally farmed meat, free-range eggs or get non-homogenized whole milk,” says Lily Kesselman, the market’s co-founder. “That’s a big deal for us.”
Last year 60 percent of the payments the vendors received at the market were made with government-subsidized payment methods, like EBT and Health Bucks. For every $5 spent using EBT, a customer receives $2 in Health Bucks that can be used for fruits and vegetables.
The organizers admit that trying to compete with the low prices of big food producers is impossible. You can get the same amount of ground beef three times cheaper from the nearby supermarket, where a dozen of eggs cost only a dollar.
”I’ve heard some people say it’s expensive,” Kesselman says. “But vendors understand that this is the poorest borough in New York.”
It’s 10 a.m. and George Hammond, a farmer from Wassaic, N.Y., is sitting on a plastic cooler at his stall. He woke up at 5 a.m., fed the cows and packed the meat so he could sell it to Mott Haven residents. ”I sell my meat at lower prices here than in the Union Square farmers’ market,” says Hammond. “I have to.” In Hammond’s case, that means selling for 30 percent less.
“It’s not a home run,” Hammond answers when asked if he sells enough to cover his expenses. But with average sales of $500 to $700, he says, it’s worth coming.
At the next stall, Bianca Sanjurjo, 38, is selecting a cauliflower to roast. “I feel it’s fresher here. There’s still dirt on it!” She laughs. “I rather pay more now than more health care costs later.”
Andy Martinez, 39, also says buying food at the market is a way of investing in himself. “Yes, it’s a little pricy, but I feel better and look better when I eat better food. And the taste is totally different. I remember buying so plastic and weird-tasting chicken from the nearby supermarket and thinking, what am I actually eating?”
Seth Tillett, 61, doesn’t go to the supermarket that often anymore, either. He says he can get 90 percent of his groceries from the farmers’ market. Tillett comes every Saturday to get meat from Hammond and to socialize. “With George we are absolutely opposite sides in politics, but the conversations we have are great,” says Tillett. “The mix of people who come here and the social part of shopping is something to value.”
The South Bronx Farmers Market runs Saturdays through Nov. 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on 138th Street between Willis and Alexander Avenues. www.southbronxfarmersmarket.com
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