At roughly $4 a pound
Help me understand.
Farmers claim to only make pennies per pound when their harvest is sold through retail stores, while also charging direct consumers what amounts to multi-thousand percent markup.
Also, fuck the people who steal from farms.
You make way less selling things wholesale, than you do selling small amounts to a larger number of people.
If you sell to a grocery store, after you pay to grow them, then you pay to harvest them, then you pay to store them, the you pay to ship them. Then a factory pays to clean them, then to label/package them, then to store them, then to ship them to the grocery store’s distribution centre. Then they pay to store them, then ship them to the grocery store. Then they pay someone to get them to the shelf, and pay someone to run the till.
If you do a “u-pick” set-up, you grow the fruit, then you pay someone to run the till.
You make way less selling things wholesale, than you do selling small amounts to a larger number of people.
I’m not arguing that. I can empathize when the costs are broken down.
But what I don’t understand is how they can justify selling u-pick at $4/pound.
I remember many years ago, being able to get 50lbs of potatoes for less than what the stores were selling 10lbs for, because I would go directly to the farm growing them. That’s how I would imagine it’s supposed to work.
But this trend of charging way, way more for stuff directly from the farm or farmer’s market is frustrating.
I see apples from local orchards selling for $0.99 / lb in local grocery stores (then those same apples are 3-4x more when you pick them yourself). So if nobody is losing money, maybe farms are undercharging wholesalers and overcharging u-pick customers?
They are definitely being underpaid with wholesale, but you often don’t get to set your price to the factories. The processing/distribution company tells you how much they are buying for, and you can either agree to sell at that price, or move on. Since there are only so many places who will buy that amount of food, you kinda need to suck it up.
Sounds like farmers should focus on selling “to the people” again, and screw these greedy corporations who don’t give a fuck about farmers or other people, for that matter!
It makes no sense to me, the orchard and berry places I have been, are cheaper than the grocery store; because the farmer gets to keep all the profit and it isn’t going through a chain or handling markups.
Also those people that steal from a U-pick place because they know they can just walk to their car, are entitled assholes.
I saw the same type at a community run Christmas charity. If you were struggling you could wait in line and pick a gift for your kid. A husband and wife show up in a $70k truck, each with a Starbucks in hand, waiting for the free gift. Wtf. I get you could lose your job and still own an expensive vehicle, but if you can’t afford a gift for your kid then maybe quit buying Starbucks till Christmas.
It makes no sense to me, the orchard and berry places I have been, are cheaper than the grocery store; because the farmer gets to keep all the profit and it isn’t going through a chain or handling markups.
It used to be this way, because I enjoyed buying direct from farms, getting CSA boxes, buying at farmer’s markets, etc.
Even just this year, tomatoes, lettuce, apples, strawberries, cucumber… all considerably more expensive at the local farmer’s market than getting local from our grocery store. I was only able to afford to go to the farmer’s market for a few weeks before going back to the grocery store for the same stuff. 😮💨
