13/06/2026
Why does buying direct sometimes cost more than the supermarket? And why that doesn’t mean farmers are profiteering.
It’s a question often get: “Why pay £5 at the farm gate when it’s £2 in the supermarket - especially if there’s no middleman?” It sounds logical, but it compares two completely different systems.
Supermarkets aren’t cheap - they’re powerful. They operate at huge scale, buying large volumes and using that leverage to push prices down - sometimes to the point where producers are paid at or even below the cost of production.
That’s economies of scale: the more you sell, the lower the cost per unit. But it works by standardising production and squeezing margins across the supply chain.
Selling direct is a different model entirely.
When farmers sell direct, they step out of that system. They’re no longer just producing - they’re also packing, marketing, selling, and managing customers.
And crucially, they’re doing it at a much smaller scale which incurs its own costs like time spent selling instead of farming, packaging, insurance, assurance, card fees and website costs.
So, while it can look like they’re cutting out costs, they’re actually replacing scale and specialist roles with their own time, labour and risk, and without the efficiencies that make supermarket pricing possible. That can sometimes mean that the cost per item is higher, not lower. Thus, the price at the farm gate is often:
• closer to the true cost of production
• reflective of a sustainable margin
• and not artificially driven down by buying power
When you buy direct, you’re not just paying for the product - you’re supporting a system where:
• the producer is paid fairly
• the quality is better
• supply chains are shorter and more transparent
• and food is often fresher and more traceable
This isn’t about cheap vs expensive. It’s about two very different ways of producing and selling food.
Supermarkets optimise for price and scale.
Farm-direct sales optimise for fairness and resilience.
So, if something is more expensive at the farm gate, it’s worth asking:
Is it higher priced - or is it simply the real cost of producing food?
