Depends on the chain. Back in the 90s I worked p/t in the produce dept. of a chain supermarket (Hannaford) when I was between careers. The store managers had some discretion as to where to get their produce, and we used to get a lot from relatively local farms...tomatoes, corn, cukes, etc. All of them within 25-30 miles. The regional managers did ask that stores within a given district use the same suppliers for consistency between stores (and no doubt better pricing). In most cases we'd have signs stating where it was from. The one exception was corn from one particular farm...he charged more at his farmstand than we did for the same corn, so he didn't want customers to know we were undercutting him on his own product. We did not jack up the prices...it was the same as if it had come from our warehouse.
Our main competition, Shaws did not have that flexibility...they had to take what the warehouse sent, and a lot of their "local" produce came from N.J or Conn. We'd kind of poke fun at them on the announcements on the PA system.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
