Price Trends Are Similar for Fruits, Vegetables, and Snack Foods
By Fred Kuchler and Hayden Stewart
Economic Research Report No. (ERR-55) 29 pp,
March 2008
An increase in the price of fruits and vegetables relative to less healthy foods could
reduce consumers’ incentives to purchase fruits and vegetables and result in less healthy
diets. Whether such a change in relative prices and incentives has occurred in the United
States is difficult to prove because of substantial quality improvements in many fresh
fruits and vegetables. For commonly consumed fresh fruits and vegetables for which
quality has remained fairly constant, analysis of price trends reveals a price decline
similar to that of dessert and snack foods. This price trend evidence suggests that the
price of a healthy diet has not changed relative to an unhealthy one, although a healthy
diet might not include every fresh fruit or vegetable currently available.
Keywords: Fresh fruit and vegetable prices, price trends, quality change, overweight, ERS, USDA
In this report ... Chapters are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- Abstract, Acknowledgments, and Contents, 35kb.
- Summary, 24 kb.
- Introduction, 23 kb.
- Why Is It Difficult To Say Whether Relative Prices Have Changed?, 30 kb.
- Price Indices May Not Adequately Account for Quality Change, 51 kb.
- Holding Quality Constant: What Can We Learn About How
Relative Prices Have Changed?, 312 kb.
- Conclusions, 19 kb.
- References, 23 kb.
- Appendix, 21 kb.
Order this report (stock #ERR-55)
Updated date: March 12, 2008
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