City Market

The Progress Plus! shows up every week or so. Usually it's promptly slipped into the recycling pile, but once in a while there is some article of interest inside. This week an article by Brian McNeill comments on the economics of the Charlottesville City Market.

- Transporting the food to the market over the 30 weeks it's open consumes a calculated 180,000-kilowatt hours. This is the same amount of power consumed by 18 homes annually. This number came from research done by fourth-year UVA student Lauren Doucette.
- The average vendor travels 60 miles to the market.
- There were 311 registered vendors last year.
- "In a conventional grocery store, the average distance that fresh fruit and vegetables have traveled is around 1,600 miles." I'm not sure where this number comes from, but it's outrageous.
- $955,788 were spent at the Water Street market last year.

The market opens in a couple weekends. April can't come soon enough. But then again, it is the cruelest month.