Charles Guyard / Photo credit: Pixabay 14:19 p.m., October 29, 2023

To pay less for their fruit and vegetables, more and more French people are going directly to producers. Some even offer customers the opportunity to pick their own crops. An approach that makes it possible to make real savings and that many orchards have set up.

The French are paying attention to their finances in this time of inflation. To pay less for their fruit and vegetables, more and more of them are abandoning supermarkets to go directly to producers, to orchards, to pick their own fruit, which lowers the purchase price. This is the case, for example, in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles, near Nantes.

1.30 per kilo of apples

"So, that's 38 kilos, 96 months, minus the weight of the wheelbarrow, which is 50.65 euros," explains the producer. In the wheelbarrow in question, apples just picked by Jean-Claude. Like this pensioner, more and more of them are coming to collect fruit and vegetables directly from orchards, such as the one in Les Planches, near Nantes.

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Golden, Melrose, Granny... Whatever the variety, the price remains the same: €1.30 per kilo of apples, far from the prices in the store. "There's a big price difference though. With my small pension, without picking, I won't be able to buy any," explains one pensioner. "It's a godsend, because with inflation in supermarkets, it would be difficult to take that much," adds another customer.

"Supermarkets and intermediaries are taking their margins"

As a result, Gaëlle has seen the number of visitors to her farm more than double in recent weeks. "We have new customers coming in. Right away, they tell us 'this price isn't true', so I explain to them that we have to pick them. In supermarkets, they are picked, it is this difference that plays into the price, but not only. It's true that supermarkets and all intermediaries are taking their margins," explains the producer.

A cheaper and also more virtuous basket. "There, we know what we're eating, we know where it comes from," says one customer. This is how picking in the fresh air offers an anti-seizure remedy.