Newbie: Buying inexpensive fruit.

[thustofrod]

Which is best and why?

The market or shopping centers?

Thank you.

[Brit_Doggie]

Market by far the cheapest and quality as good as the major stores often here in pattaya baht type trucks sell fruit from their vehicles at astounding prices.

[scotinsiam]

Agreed - the market produce is much cheaper and in my opinion better quality. I have bought from Big C etc and the veg starts to go soft after a day or so if not used.

[KhunBENQ]

All I know from occasional visits:

Market and stalls on Soi Buakhao, The fresh/food market towards Central rd., not the one near South Pattaya rd.

https://goo.gl/maps/5o2zz

Market and stalls on South Pattaya rd. walking from Tukcom towards 2nd rd/walking street.

https://goo.gl/maps/s8wOf

There must be many more markets to look for.

From the pickups they sell in some quantities like 3 or 4 kg for 100 Baht (thats the same about everywhere in Thailand).

Edited July 22, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[ignis]

cheapest is always what is in season, so 1st thing you need to learn is what fruit in in season at what time of the year.. so most fruit at markets in season cost around 20 baht kg, out of season [very beginning or end of season] 50 - 100 baht.. because of lack of water bananas are very expensive at the moment..

[JESSVANPELT]

The best price fruit and also the cheapest is the trucks which ride up and down the Soi's and sale it by the Kilo, the downside is they are only going to have the fruit in season. June and July its normally Mangosteens, Rambutan amend Manao (or what the locals call lemons).

The local Thai markets such as the Tuesday/Friday market On Soi Buakhao near Pattaya Tai, will usually have a pretty broad variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables although there prices will not compete with the seasonal truck vendors they will be much less then the Local super stores such as Big c, Tesco or Makro.

The super stores will of time to time have good deals on advertised imported fruits such as grapes. (They are imported so the price although a special one is still probably higher then you pay at home).

The Wan Chai Market Place( I could be spelling this wrong), which is a permanent market place of all types of foods located across from the Temple on Pattaya Tai some what close to Second Road will have reasonable prices but you will ned to spend some time there sorting out the best supplier as the place is pretty big ( you ned to go inside not just stay on the street).

The prices for fruit in front of Mikes department store On Second round is nothing special, it s just there to gouge tourists so don't bother.

Watermelon tends to be the least consistent fruit grown here as it come from areas that have to much water and normally it grows to fast so the flavour can be minimally sweet to no taste whats soever.

Good luck and members if you have a place I did not mention please let me know.

[KittenKong]

I find there is a lot of overcharging in markets and I particularly hate the way many stalls dont show prices at all but just invent them to suit the customer.

So apart from the pick-ups already mentioned, most of my fruit and veg comes from Makro which I find is generally cheaper than Tesco and hugely cheaper than BigC.

The only drawback with Makro is that sometimes they only sell quite large packs. Chillies are an example, but even so you can get half a kilo of chillies at Makro for the cost of a tiny handful of the same chillies at BigC. So it's no real loss, especially if you like to make soups or smoothies with excess fruit or veg.

[craigt3365]

We've been finding the local market to be more than Makro. Plus, who knows how the fruit was grown. Pesticides, etc. Same can be said with Makro, but I'd think they'd have a bit better quality control. Quite a few articles not long ago about dodgy fruit and veggies in fresh markets. I guess they were spraying them with something to keep them looking fresh.

[TIMMMMM]

MAKRO is the best and cheapest. Everything else is either overpriced or oversprayed to make it look fresh. Stay away from street vendors. If Makro is out of reach, the second best option would be Tesco. Big C is the worst.

[craigt3365]

Just found this. Worth a read:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/587524-dangerous-levels-of-pesticides-will-poison-thailands-food-plan/

[TIMMMMM]

Sad but true. I don't know about EU food quality but Canadian isn't much better. Most of the vegetables sold through major food chain stores have zero nutritional value. GMO imports from US and Mexico represent 80% of fruits and vegetables supply.