Tomatoes at 10 cents: selling at a loss rather than pulling up crops

Tomatoes at 10 cents: selling at a loss because pulling up costs more

No farmer sells tomatoes at €0.10 per kilo by choice. They do it because, once harvested, the sunk cost is unrecoverable, and pulling up the plant costs more than picking and selling even at a loss. It's sunk cost logic taken to the extreme: comparing marginal revenue (€0.10/kg) against the marginal cost of harvesting, packing and transport, not against the total cost of production. And in that comparison, sometimes losing a little is better than losing a lot.

The margin nobody sees between the field and the supermarket

Outrage flares when the same tomato sells for €1.59/kg in the supermarket, sourced from the Netherlands, with higher wages and shipping included. But the direct comparison is misleading: the wholesale price includes grading losses, warehouse handling and short-term logistics, while the supermarket shelf incorporates distribution, display and the margins of every link in the chain. What the gap does reveal is the power asymmetry: the farmer, with a perishable and simultaneous harvest, can barely negotiate; the buyer can.

The solution that never comes: cooperatives and direct sales

Some argue the sector should innovate with alternative channels – cooperatives, processing, direct sales – instead of complaining year after year. The reality is that for a small producer, building their own distribution network requires investment and scale they simply don't have. Meanwhile, the wholesale market keeps dictating ruinous prices in times of oversupply. It's a chronicle of a death foretold: another spring with tomatoes at 10 cents, another season sold at a loss, and consumers paying five times more without knowing it.