About SeasonSort
SeasonSort shows what fruits and vegetables are cheapest and in season in your US region this week — then helps you find recipes to cook with them. The point is the sorting and filtering: sort by budget, protein, calories, time, diet, and more, so you can find exactly what you’re looking for.
Where the prices come from
Produce prices come straight from the USDA National Retail Report – Specialty Crops (FVWRETAIL), which aggregates advertised supermarket prices from hundreds of retailers across roughly 29,000 stores, broken out by US region and published weekly on Fridays. We currently cover 6 regions. Each Saturday an automated job pulls the new report, so the numbers you see reflect this week’s ads — including the week-over-week price changes.
How we compute nutrition and cost
Calories and protein for each produce item are computed from the USDA’s FoodData Central database — our own numbers, not copied from anyone else. Each recipe’s cost per serving and full nutrition are calculated at build time from its ingredients: the produce is priced from this week’s live report, and pantry staples from a maintained reference table. When produce prices change, the “cheapest to cook right now” ranking changes with them.
How we handle recipes: index and link
SeasonSort is a discovery layer, not a recipe host. We index only the factual layer — ingredients, time, yield, and our own computed nutrition and cost — and link out to the source blog for the full method and photos. We always credit and link to the original creator. If you’re a recipe creator and would like a listing updated or removed, get in touch.
Who’s behind it
SeasonSort is built and maintained by Buffr LLC, based in Gilbert, Arizona. I built it to bring a few tools together in one place — a quick read on what produce should be cheap and in season right now, and what to cook with it — instead of checking prices, seasonality, and recipes separately.
I maintain the tool, the weekly data pipeline, and the recipe index personally. Prices refresh every week; if something looks off, or you’re a recipe creator who’d like a listing updated or removed, email jtwillo51@gmail.com and I’ll take care of it.
The USDA data is public; our value is in the tool — the price-and-season sorting, the computed budget/nutrition, and the curated recipe index. Nutrition and prices are estimates from public data, not dietary or financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is SeasonSort?
SeasonSort is a free tool that ranks fresh produce and meat by this week’s real US retail prices for your region, then links each item to recipes that use it — so you can cook what’s cheap and in season right now.
How often is the price data updated?
Every week. Produce and meat prices come from the USDA’s weekly retail reports (published Fridays) and refresh each Saturday, covering 6 US regions.
Where does the data come from?
Prices come from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s weekly National Retail Reports for produce, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and eggs. Nutrition comes from the USDA FoodData Central database.
Does SeasonSort host full recipes?
No. SeasonSort indexes only the factual layer — ingredients, time, yield, and computed nutrition and cost — and links out to the original food blog for the full method and photos. Recipes remain the property of their creators.
How is recipe cost calculated?
Each recipe’s cost per serving is estimated from its ingredients, priced against this week’s regional produce and meat data plus a maintained table of pantry-staple costs. Produce and meat prices are exact for the week shown; recipe totals are estimates.
Is SeasonSort free?
Yes. SeasonSort is a free reference tool built on public USDA data.