Heh, I'm going for "worldwide trend." Recently I've been disgusetd by the quality of tangerines and oranges at pretty much all the supermarkets in my area (Southeast US), but I picked up some pre-packaged Sunkist florida oranges from Publix; they were selling them in six-packs, but the per-pound price was actually lower than the loose produce. They looked ridiculously bright and shiny, which I assumed was just a corporate fruit-man parlor trick, but goddamn those were some seriously good oranges.
Farmers markets are definitely the way to go, though. We used to head out to our local one they put up on Saturdays, and you could get just about anything you wanted at great quality for cheap.