Doug, my downtown farmers market white nectarine, white peach, apple, and quince guy, is a worried man. Business is off - way off - at the market, and not just for him. Our country's current economic woes impacted vendors' sales even the Sunday before Thanksgiving. A manager at a local independent grocery also reported a drop compared to last year. Compensating for high energy bills, deflated real estate values, and Christmas by shrinking a holiday menu is pretty radical and puts the magnitude of the problem in scary, crystal-clear perspective.
This morning, Doug was particularly fretful about his apples, expressing concern, for several reasons, that he would have to dump thousands he unexpectedly now cannot sell at the processing plant down the road from his farm. His gorgeous and routinely few end-of-market season apples are usually turned into applesauce for the plant's largest customer, Walmart, but the beast instead is currently desperate for apple juice, generally made by pressing inferior apples. Doug hates the thought of his perfect apples being underutilized. And dumping apples at this plant nets him one dollar a bushel, as compared to eight dollars for that same bushel at the market. But even more astounding is that Walmart pays the processing plant in dribs and drabs, so the plant in turn must pay Doug that way. It will be until June that Doug gets paid in full, so he in turn must lay off his tree-trimming staff.
This sickening tale illustrates Walmart's death grip on America's economy. Those discounts come with a price
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