Michigan's favorite local produce, retailers

Michigan’s favorite local produce, retailers

by Amy Sowder, Sep 21, 2021

While Michigan’s apple harvest is just gearing up, most other fruits are winding down through September. Not so with vegetables. It’s mid-season for most vegetables.

Michigan is full-on into its local season, so wholesalers and marketers can tout local and pay less in freight when possible.

Michigan’s overall vegetable crop production values have dropped from $202 million in 2016 to almost $197 million in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Apples for the fresh market alone accounted for $198.1 million in 2020.

Read related: Foodservice faces slow recovery 

In descending order of the commodities with the highest production value, Michigan sells cucumbers, squash, snap beans, asparagus, bell peppers, cabbage and pumpkins.

Cucumber production values and volume dropped in those five years.

The top vegetable commodity volume dropped from 610,800 to 505,200 pounds, along with production value from $69.2 million to $51.8 million.

Even though squash values rose by $10 million in that time, from $33.6 million to $44.5 million, squash production volume dropped from almost 250,000 pounds to almost 195,000 pounds.

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Snap bean production volume rose just a smidge in five years, and its value roller-coastered with a steep drop in the middle years but recovered by 2020 for a resulting relatively small decrease of $993,000 from 2016.

The first half of 2021 saw lower prices, said Jim Bommarito, president of R.A.M. Produce Distributors LLC, based at the Detroit Produce Terminal.

“As a whole, my average cost of products was actually down the first half of the year. January and February were different than Januarys and Febuarys of the past. All your restaurants were closed,” Bommarito said. 

“People weren’t barbecuing in the winter or getting together after the holidays. A lot of that doesn’t go on anyway.

Entertaining slows down, and without the restaurants, it’s even more.”

Just like other regions of the U.S., retailers have done well in 2020 and 2021.

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In particular, Meijer has the retail market cornered with a top-ranking 34.65% share in the state, about 10% higher than the second-place winner and more than three times higher than the third-ranked retailer. 

Kroger and Walmart also have some big hunks of market share, and it drops sharply after that to the other retailers.

“Michigan is a very competitive market, especially southeastern Michigan,” Bommarito said. “Nobody is comfortable and everybody strives to do better, even the chain stores, even competitors on the terminal.”

Independent stores are big in Michigan too.

“I think they do a fantastic job. I’d put our independents up against anywhere in the country as far as quality, on trends,” he said. “They’re the first ones to try a new trend.”

Read related: Michigan produce shipments increase in 2020









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