Why do you call it “the produce aisle”?

Question

I came across the word, “the produce aisle” for the first time in NPR’s news introducing 'Eating on the Wild Side – A field guide to nutritious food,” writen by Jo Robinson. It goes:

“Our modern fruits, grains and vegetables aren't nearly as nutrition-packed as their wild counterparts were thousands of years ago, says health writer Jo Robinson. Her new book offers advice on how to shop the produce aisle to select for foods that offer the best nutritional bang for the bite.”

None of Cambridge, Oxford, and Merriam-Webster online English dictionary registers- “produce aisle.” But Google Ngram indicates that the word emerged in / around 1960 and its usage is on a sharp rise.

What does ‘produce aisle” specifically mean? Why has it come current? Isn’t it simply an in-store aisle?

Why is it ‘produce” aisle, not “product / merchandise aisle?

Answer 1

Produce here refers to “fresh fruits and vegetables”. It’s the noun version of that word, not the verb, and so its stress falls on the first syllable.

Therefore the produce aisle is the place where such things are found. Before the supermarket, it’s the sort of thing you’d find at your greengrocer, if you were so fortunate as to have one.

Note

The produce aisle is usually rather different from other aisles in a supermarket or grocery store. It is usually wide and runs along the wall: the right-hand wall in right-hand–drive countries and the left-hand wall in clockwise or left-hand–drive ones. That way it’s where you first turn to as soon as you walk into the supermarket. It needs larger bins for the produce, and often has misters or cold frames, and not uncommonly, islands and other free-standing displays as well.