Prince Charles Opens Highgrove Vegetable Shop to Public
Prince Charles opened his organic vegetable market, Highgrove, this morning to the public. Located in Tetbury, near his royal estate—also named Highgrove—the shop is the latest venture in the prince's Duchy Originals organic products empire. From the Guardian:
At Highgrove shop, the prince is sticking to the formula that has served him so well; on offer will be everything from seasonal vegetables freshly pulled out of the ground from the prince's nearby estate—no extra charge for the royal mud still clinging to them—to apple juice from Camilla's orchards in Wiltshire.
There will be jams, jellies, honeys, chutneys, and mustards, as well as handmade biscuits and chocolates. But the coachloads of visitors, tourists and shoppers that will beat a path to his store should not come expecting a bargain.
To be fair, it's the spendy souvenirs at the shop that the Guardian knocks; the produce, it says, is reasonable.
"A bunch of earthy organic leeks from Highgrove will cost £1.35 today," the paper says. "A similar bunch of leeks that was plucked from the soil in the Netherlands and looked nothing like as tasty as Charles's was £1.10 opposite in the supermarket Somerfield." (That's US$2.74 and US$2.23, respectively.)
Just for fun I called a Whole Foods in Manhattan to get an idea of what leek prices Stateside were: $2.79 a pound for conventionally grown leeks at the Chelsea location. And a Wild Oats Market I called in Kansas City was offering organic leeks for $2.99 a pound. Of course, who's to say how much a "bunch of leeks" weights at Highgrove, so the comparisons may not hold water, but we do know the U.S. leeks lack the royal provenance.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
2 Comments:
Given the current exchange rate, $2.79 is £1.38, which seems in line with the UK prices (assuming that a "bunch" is around a pound)
rheogs at 11:45AM on 03/18/08
Yes. That's what I was trying to get at but perhaps did not express satisfactorily. That the U.S. prices were in line with those in the U.K., in markets likely to sell a similar caliber of produce—hence Whole Foods and Wild Oats and not, say, A&P or Safeway. And, yes, we don't know what a "bunch" of leeks weighs at Highgrove. Assuming it's roughly a pound, then the prices at the prince's joint are unexpectedly at average.
Adam Kuban at 11:59AM on 03/18/08