2 weeks Ago By Elizabeth Myong, The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — These days, going to the grocery store feels like a gut punch. Looking at the final bill can make anyone’s stomach drop. And that feeling only gets worse when you notice your produce is already going bad.
From 2020 to 2024, food prices increased by about 23 percent, according to the USDA. That’s why North Texans are turning to a produce market that has gone viral on TikTok. Here a bag of avocados can cost $1.
50. Two pounds of strawberries are $3.99.
With three videos with over a million views in the last few weeks, it’s clear North Texans are eager to lower their grocery bills and want higher-quality options. Ariana Aguirre, who lives in Seagoville, came to The Cedar Market Ranch in Dallas with her 4-year-old son, Alan, after seeing the market’s TikTok videos. She loaded up on grapes, cucumbers, oranges and five boxes of strawberries, Alan’s favorite.
“If you used to spend like $100 on something, now you spend like $200 plus,” she said. “It’s a lot.” Chelsi Lacour also came to the market after seeing Cedar Market’s TikTok videos.
The 29-year-old nurse waited in line with her sister as they pulled along a trolley full of kale, green apples, bananas, oranges, limes, green onions and roma tomatoes. Lacour said it’s wonderful to have a place to go for fresh produce. She lives in a part of West Dallas that’s considered a food desert.
“I didn’t see a lot of things that were beat up or bruised or brown and looked like they had been on the shelves for weeks,” she said. Arnulfo “Arnie” Perez III’s family runs the market. The commitment to good deals and cutting down on food waste started with his father, Arnulfo Perez II.
He started slinging watermelons in the 1990s at the old Dallas Farmers Market. “Go to the grocery store, and you see people limit themselves to not buy fresh fruits,” Arnie Perez said. “So we saw a little gap, and it really fills us inside whenever people come here like, ‘Thank you for these prices.
I can shop for my family.’” Keeping costs down Thanks to the Perez family’s experience in the produce industry, they’ve learned how to keep prices affordable. The market started only about a year ago as a way to sell surplus produce.
But the Perez family has been working in the produce industry for decades through its distribution center, SouthCoast Produce. In 1995, husband and wife Arnulfo II and Mayra Perez launched the company to distribute fresh produce to local vendors and restaurants. Now, SouthCoast has a 32,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse and about 15 employees.
Trucks and forklifts roll in and out, delivering the next batch of produce, transporting it to another location or moving it into Cedars Market next door. One way the Perez family has found good deals for customers is by cutting down on middlemen. That means bargaining directly with farmers and managing the transportation of produce.
The Perezes also know how to time the market. “We’ll buy more when it’s cheaper and buy what we need when it’s expensive, so we can balance it out and give it the best price possible,” Arnie said. The produce at Cedar Market is also usually fresher than at a big grocery store.
Major grocery stores must ship their produce from a farm to a distribution center where it sits for a few days before moving to stores nationwide. But Cedars Market is right next to its distribution center, which is why it can more quickly bring customers produce..
