I remember buying ears of corn direct from a farmer's market and thinking why are these so expensive in the grocery stores. Well The store buys them in bulk so the farmers would give them an even better deal. Then they have to ship them from the farm to their distribution center.

They pay workers there to inventory and seperate the corn based on hos many ears each store needs in the region. THey are shipped again and deisel fuel is pretty expensive now days. The store has to pay a stocker to unload the truck and put the corn on the shelf. They pay a 'visual team' to analyse how they should be stacked. No one will buy corn if it is 25 cents in a bucket, but they will pay 40 cents if it were lined up like a train all the way around the store. Then they have a loss prevention team to make sure no one steals said corn.

The managers at the store get a bonus if enough of the corn is bought, and of course they have to pay to have their carpets cleaned and floors waxed, because no one will buy food from a store that is not spotless. Pay the cashiers and the baggers and the dudes who have to go out in the lot and round up the carts. After all of this that corn costs 3 times as much but it is so much more convenient to drive 6 to 8 miles in the gas guzzling SUV than it would be to get out to that farmer's market.

Besides since so few people are buying from the market, the farmers have to raise the prices there to make it worth their time.