So I am coming originally from Poland. My mum just shared a picture of strawberries they bought today on a market (peak strawberry season). She paid 1.76 euro per kg. As it happens we just bought a box of 400g of Dutch strawberries at AH for 7.47 eur/kg (it's on sale right now).
Don't even get me started on raspberries, blueberries, red berries costs. They are soo expensive here I rarely ever eat them. While in Poland, during the season, they are poor people staple food (including baking, dinners, breakfasts, lunches, and making jams for winter).
I don't know what your take on this is, but I would rather enjoy the fruit when it is in season for a cheap price, then have it available almost all year long, but as a rarity for the rich.

by chibi_nibi

40 comments

  1. Labor intensive and expensive transport. When plucked the clock begins ticking for the fresh ones, berries will spoil quickly.

    What you can do is grow them yourself, berries aren’t that difficult.

  2. Picking berries is very labour intensive. Labour is expensive. Berries also spoil quickly. The result is that berries are expensive. 🤷‍♀️

  4. I can’t really tell you why they are so expensive other than labour cost, but having had strawberries in Poland when in season, I unfortunately also have to tell you the Polish ones taste vastly better.

  5. Every time I’m on holiday (today I’m in Austria), I’m astounded by how much better the selection of fresh items (vegetables, fruit, meat) is compared to the Netherlands. Both the variety, quality, and price are significantly better.

    Something is seriously wrong in the Netherlands we seem to be paying out of our arse for mediocre quality.

  6. Supermarkets only accept a very small amount of strawberries harvested. Like only the top 10% looking ones are ‘good enough’ to end up there, which makes it very expensive.

    Farmers stores (from my experience, although I’m sure there are more options) generally do it a bit differently. They still separate the berries by quality, but just also offer the worse ones for a better price.

    Roughly the €1,75/kg price you mentioned would be difficult in season but like, everything’s more expensive here, but you can get a lot better prices than AH if you go to some other place. The farm itself is obviously the best place but those aren’t in every area of the country, but even a more general fruit and veg store should be decent

  7. Have you ever been to the market, my friend? I could have bought an entire box of raspberries(12 of the little ones, so 3 kilo) for 5 euros. Same goes for strawberry, they sell them by the bucket for 1.25 a kilo. Yes, it will not be grade A, but I doubt the ones seen here are of similar quality (optically and consistency, not taste) as the ones in Albert Heijn.

    As the other user mentioned: you don’t really pay for the product, you pay for the supply chain

  8. 1. You’re right 

    2. The main difference between Poland and the Netherlands in this is the price of labour, because they have to be hand picked. This is done by minimum wage workers (and even in the Netherlands for a large part by Polish workers) but minimum wage in the Netherlands is 2,5 times that in Poland. Another reason is the difference price of farming land. 

    3. You can find cheaper berries on your local produce market! Google “markt <name of your town>” to find where and when it is. This is always going to have the best price for in-season fruits and vegetables. Also in my experience bell peppers are much cheaper on the markt.

  9. Because of the plastic straw-ban the demand for organic straws is rising. And very berrie of course.

  12. Don’t buy strawberry in a supermarket. They are extremely overpriced because of alle the middleman.

    Best place to buy is at the farms themselves, a lot of farmers have a stand outside where you can buy all sort of vegetables depending on the season.

    Alternatively, the weekly market or the farmers market have often a more reasonable price than the supermarket.

  13. It’s a simple supply and demand question, as long as people pay the price for it, the price will go up, because they can.

  14. All fruits are expensive because in the Netherlands is not easy to grow fruit. The weather doesn’t help

  16. You are comparing Albert Heijn to a week market. Granted, they will also be more expensive on the market here, but nowhere near that much.

  17. Berries are a very, very fragile fruit and are very labour intensive to harvest. Their shelve life is very short.

  18. It also depends on where in the country you live. In the east of the country they’re a lot cheaper in supermarkets. Like seriously, even I was shocked when I saw the price you mentioned as here in the east they still aren’t cheap but still way better priced. And then strawberries from the supermarket don’t even taste nice, they are often sour and watery… I generally end up cycling to the other side of the border to our eastern neighbors where I know where to find some good strawberry fields and buy from there. They are always sooooooo damn sweet and full of taste.

  19. Yeah, I do understand that AH is not the best place. But I also remember that in my small home town (~80k people, which is small for Poland) there was a farmer’s market every day of the week except Sundays. And it was in the city centre, so a very convenient way to get the fresh produce every day.

    Here it happens only once a week (Saturday) and locally, in my suburb, there is one on Thursdays. But so far, I see them selling the same stuff that AH does and for similar prices. Not much seasonality in there. Like I don’t expect a farmer to sell mangoes and bananas. I expect them to have only the current season produce that they are right now harvesting. My memories from Poland are literally of whole trucks of strawberries coming every day to town with fresh berries. Mountains of strawberries everywhere and eating them all day for a few weeks, and then they are gone. Replaced by cherries, sour cherries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. All at different times of the year when they are at their best. I don’t see this much on those ‘farmer markets’ which makes me seriously doubt their ‘farmer’ label, they look like just another middle-man. And it was always the same people. So you also got to know them, and trust them.

    We would similarly also see dairy farmers selling fresh (cottage) cheese, cream, butter, and unpasteurised fresh milk. Small batches, every day.

    I grew up with fresh, highly variable produce. Now I am stuck with a questionable quality of ‘staple’ fruit and veggies at high prices.

    And unfortunately, I am not able to drive every day around the country to visit farmers and get fresh stuff straight from them.

    I guess it’s also a difference in production styles. I see farmers in the Netherlands are highly specialised and also own big lands, farms, etc. so you produce a lot of the same thing.
    Where I am from, farms were small and diverse (hilly/mountain regions don’t fare well with massive farms, standardisation, and efficiency optimisation). My family comes from a long line of farmers. My cousins are still farmers. They have many different crops, just smaller batches. But that allows them to rotate the land, and also have stable income throughout the whole year.

  20. Dutch economy isn’t suitable to offer food that has short shelf time for a low price.

    Grow it yourself, buy it frozen? Blackberries are easy. But here again, it takes up space and space is expensive.

  21. Berries get bruised easily and they have a short shelf live. They require special treatment and transportation: cooled, fast, lots of air in the packaging. There also is a lot of waste in the supermarkets: once bruised they’re not bought anymore.

    Berries are also quickly damaged by rain, hail and animals. This drives the cost in supermarkets up as they only sell pristine berries.

    In many other countries the looks of berries are less relevant which means more of them can be sold in the supermarket, driving the price down. And of course all of the above requires loads of manual labor which is much more expensive here compared to Poland.

  22. Heb je ze gekocht? Ja, dan kunnen ze dus nog best in prijs omhoog.

  23. Go find them at the market. Looks for deals.

    They are seasonal fruits so prices depend on the weather.

  25. They are a luxury good: it is expensive to produce and handle, much more than e.g. bananas, which are handled by slave labour (or its somewhat more modern equivalent anyway), in much cheaper countries than the western countries where the stuff is sold.

  27. Did you know that… strawberries are technically not berries?
    Bananas are berries though.

    (You actual question has been answered by now I think but I just wanted to add this)

  29. You compare store bought vs market bought which is unfair to start with.

    I can buy in the store now at 2.99€/ 500gr and in the market/stalls on the road I pay 2.25 or 2.50€.

  30. Don’t buy strawberries! They are full of pesticides due to their porous skin. Same as grapes. They contain highest level of toxins of all fruits.

  31. In the Netherlands berries of all kinds are considered culturally as luxury foods, so they are priced accordingly.

  32. They are also the best strawberries in the world and the pickers are expensive robots or decently paid humans. 

    (We’re also in the middle of a greed inflation)

  33. If those polish farmers sell strawberries for 1.76 can you tell me how much they pay their workers ? Like this is the real question here. You are just fine people working in the fields for 300-400 euros ?

    Do you think those local farmers in Poland rush to markets every day and sell for cheap because they are altruistic and rather support local communities? Or would they rather sell it in bulk to supermarkets? If they had a choice of course. Farmers do not grow for local markets anymore, it is delusional thinking.

    I wish everything would be cheaper in general but this is also delusional perhaps.

  34. You’re buying from the supermarket, strawberries are extortionately expensive there. At weekmarkets you’re usually paying half the supermarket price for strawberries, other berries remain expensive. You’re also comparing Polish prices to Dutch prices. Median wage there is about half of what it is here, of course produce will be cheaper.

  35. Great, now compare the average wage of both countries.

  36. Funnily enough I just picked a handful of strawberries in my garden this morning! Planted them in the previous year and now I got an abundance of them. My lesson learned is that I will be growing them in pots because it’s just so much work keeping a moestuin clean. Ok probably not much work but I rather do no work

  38. 90% of my berries get eaten by birds. The fuck they are expensive! Tell my wife. It’s her bloody garden.

  39. This is because the Dutch are racist but they also don’t want to work on the fields themselves

    So now farmers have an increased expense in attracting more workers

  40. Cries in swiss francs. I pay almost 14 euros a kilo

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