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While vegetables are increasingly distributed outside traditional wholesale markets in Japan, vegetable growers are able to extend the market for their produce. Distribution of cut vegetables means an expanding outlet for vegetable growers. This study attempts to analyze the decision-making of vegetable growers who market their lettuce to vegetable processing plants. Vegetable processing plants are classified into three categories according to the way of collecting vegetables. The first type is the market-dependent plant which mainly obtains vegetables in wholesale markets. The second type is the subsidiary plant whose supply comes from affiliated trading companies and farmers' corporations. The third type is the plant established in vegetable-growing districts in order to process local farm products. Special attention is paid to the lettuce processing plant operated by Yatsugatake Agricultural Cooperative Association in Kawakami village, Nagano Prefecture.
The lettuce processing plant was established in order to process and market low-quality vegetables in Kawakami, a major lettuce producing district during the summer. The plant, however, was no successful in processing locally grown lettuce. While the major vegetable producing area is predominant over the markets, farmers of Kawakami have many outlets for marketing their lettuce such as the cooperative marketing by Yatsugatake Agricultural Cooperative Association and the contract marketing with brokers and supermarket chains. Reflecting low prices of lettuce, marketing to the processing plant is important as it assures minimum income to lettuce growers in Kawakami, though it is only a secondary outlet.
Toyo area in Ehime Prefecture, on the other hand, supplies lettuce to the lettuce processing plant in Kawakami during the winter. Lettuce production by contract for the processing plant began in this area because farmers had difficulty selling their produce to wholesale markets due to the limited quantity of lettuce. Lettuce growers in Toyo chose to market their lettuce to the processing plant rather negatively.

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