Buying oranges and potatoes online: the savings supermarkets can't match

Buying oranges and potatoes online: the savings supermarkets can't match

One kilo of organic new potatoes costs 2.18 euros in a hypermarket. Twenty kilos of Galician potatoes, including shipping, cost 1.30 euros per kilo. You don't need a calculator for the difference: 13.60 euros saved on a 43.6 euro purchase. This is the starting point for a compilation of online grocery stores that has been active for 770 days with 103 responses, born from a domestic confession: 300 euros on food in a single month and the suspicion that the bill will keep rising.

The rule governing this exercise is simple and eliminates half of the candidates. Only products that do not spoil within a month are included. If you buy five kilos of lamb chops, you will have to freeze them, and then a fair comparison is no longer with the supermarket's fresh meat but with the frozen version. Therefore, almost all truly perishable items are out. What remains are potatoes, oranges, canned goods, cured meats, and sweets.

Galician potatoes: from 2.18 euros to 1.30 per kilo

The tuber is the first battlefield. The starting reference is one kilo of organic new potato at 2.18 euros. The counteroffer that prevails: 20 kilos for 26 euros with free shipping, which brings the price down to 1.30 euros per kilo. The theoretical saving is around 40%, with a fine print that no one hides: if the last few kilos rot in the pantry, the calculation goes out the window.

The traceability of Galician potatoes becomes a small saga. First, 10 kilos from Orense are purchased for 16 euros including shipping, and the verdict is enthusiastic: white, tender, mis dieses. Later, the season in that shop runs out and alternatives must be sought. The price increase is also recorded: in one year, the kilo has gone from 1 euro to 1.30 euros, a sudden 30% jump. Some buy the sour variety from another provider, while others warn that supermarket potatoes reach 2 euros per kilo and arrive half-rotten.

Oranges: 19 euros for 10 kilos and blood orange season

The second major chapter is citrus. The list accumulates suppliers from Valencia and Sagunto with prices ranging between 19 and 22 euros for 10 kilos, with free shipping. Sweet Navelina oranges coexist with blood oranges, which are more acidic and smaller in size, arriving with perhaps a mandarin mixed in the box as a sample. A five-kilo box lasts fifteen days of juice and snacks.

The calendar is in charge. Cheap out-of-season oranges are old; when the season starts, the product is fresh and the price rises. Some arrive with slightly green skin but are delicious regardless. And there is the fact that explains the price: there is a surplus of oranges in Valencia and a shortage of people to pick them from the trees. The middleman is not the only one taking a cut; there is also a labor cost that no one covers.

Meat, canned goods, and the shipping problem

Bulk meat has its own lane. A pet food supplier offers beef liver at 3.29 euros per kilo and chopped lean beef at 5.30 euros per kilo], compared to the 8.45 euros a hypermarket charges for liver. The reasonable doubt raised by anyone seeing these figures: what is behind the photo. The most repeated hypothesis is that it is edible product but with an unappealing appearance, similar to the small fish often rejected by the sea.

In canned goods, a 25% offer leaves canned tuna in glass jars at rock-bottom prices, with free shipping on orders over 90 euros. And for sweets, traditional pastries, cheeses, and honey from the north with home delivery. The wall that the whole system hits is always the same: shipping costs that double the product price. An avocado producer summarizes it bluntly: selling online yields the same price as placing them in the general market. Real savings only appear when the order is large and transport is free.

The channel where farmers sell without intermediaries

The most interesting evolution of the matter is not a specific store but the channel. A delivery group brings together producers who advertise directly; it started with agricultural products and has extended to the entire primary sector and handicrafts. There, you can buy aged beef, chops, round for carpaccio, and noble cuts of free-range beef. The price is not cheap, and those who pay it accept it: being able to eat meat like in the old days has its cost. Delivery arrives within 24 hours, in an isothermal box with separate pieces.

The downside is the usual one, noted by someone who knows the business from the inside: without volume, transport eats up the margin. Buying direct from the farmer works when orders are grouped, not when ordering just two kilos.

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With these differences, direct buying should have taken over households. Only a minority still organizes to fill their pantries with potatoes and oranges via the internet. The math is done, the suppliers exist, and free shipping is available. What is missing, judging by the numbers, is for someone to dare to order 20 kilos at once.