How to Buy Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

Whether you’re a chef planning a menu, a kitchen manager doing purchasing, or a mom looking for healthy cost effective foods for your family, it’s helpful to know what is in season, and why fresh produce costs what it does.

Some factors that influence the price of produce include seasonality, weather, and demand.  In today’s world, what can be in season in your area may be out of season in the primary growing region.  Weather heavily impacts how products are grown, and how much makes it onto supplier or store shelves.  You tend to hear about this during the winter if Florida gets an early frost and citrus crops suffer.  Demand is another great influence on the cost of produce.   Around Valentines day and Mother’s day, fresh berry prices tend to trend upwards due to demand.

In all likelihood, your state or province has a board of farmers with a website that you can look to for information about in season fruits and vegetables.  If you’re from BC, or in the pacific northwest, these tables from Act Now BC will tell you what’s farm fresh:

For information about supply and weather impact, I suggest you look to some trade newsletters sent out by distributors like Sysco and Allied Food Service.  Allied, through Fresh Point, publishes a weekly newsletter called Fresh Press.  Fresh Press provides a brief overview of weather impact and demand, along with showcasing prime in season produce.  You can see the latest issue of Fresh Press in PDF format by clicking here.  Or take a look at the archive of previous issues.

Sysco publishes detailed supply information in their weekly Market Reports.  Check them out here.

While it’s not Food Network sexy, this type of knowledge will ultimately make you a smarter shopper, and with better ingredients, you can be a better chef (or cooker – thanks Rachel Ray for that term).