Growing microgreens at home is an enjoyable and rewarding hobby. Imagine taking that enjoyable hobby and selling microgreens for profit? Before setting up your business and listing your microgreens for sale, it is important that you take into consideration of the full cost from seed purchase to harvesting the food. Once you know this, you will be able to create a microgreens price list that is competitive and still make a nice profit. This article will outline how to sell microgreens from your business for profit.
As little as just one hour a day to maintain them, you will have your big reward at the end of the week. As for many, having a small indoor microgreens farm utlising vertical farming can be a solid business model. You’ll get to spend time with family and earn some extra cash at the same time.
Check here to learn how and where to sell your microgreens.
With that said, good business needs investment if you are planning a microgreens business. You have to spend a little time and money upfront to buy seeds, tools, and probably infrastructure. Fortunately, it doesn’t cost you a bank growing microgreen.
Depending on your scale, it can cost you anywhere from a MacDonald’s meal to a few thousand dollars.
I like this starter microgreens kit as it has everything you need to get started without needing to order each item separately. More details on my step-by-step guide for complete beginners can be found here.
If you are after a more detailed microgreen setup, you can obtain your seeds and equipment here.
Table of Contents
- How Much Do Microgreens Sell For?
- How to Sell Microgreens For a Profit
- How to calculate
- Cost for one tray of microgreens
- Microgreen Seed
- Soil/media
- Water and electricity
- Other expenses to consider
- Earning for one tray of microgreens
- The number of seeds per 1020 tray
- Microgreen Seeding Rate/Seed Density Calculator
- The yield per tray
- The best microgreens to sell
How Much Do Microgreens Sell For?
When researching, you will find that the price of microgreens is charged in ounces and can range from around $2.00 an ounce upwards, depending on the quality and variety of microgreens offered. Microgreens can be sold direct to restaurants, grocery store, at a farmers market, or potentially to a retail food establishment. Organic microgreens will attract a premium along with fresh microgreens.
How to Sell Microgreens For a Profit
How to calculate
To price microgreens reasonably, you first need to investigate the current pricing in your area, including farmer’s market, online stores, and grocery stores. As the price can be different from place to place, you have to decide the type of microgreens to use, which also have good local market value and demand.
I have prepared a seed density calculator and microgreen yield for you (scroll to below). With that, you can estimate the possible yield and earnings per tray.
Next, work on the area available for your indoor urban farm, and the number of trays can be fitted into the area to maximize the production speed. Then, do the calculation accordingly to deduct the cost to produce each tray of microgreens. See below.
For each microgreens variety, determine the turnaround time.
Once you have done the calculation and marketing research, you have to price your microgreens according to your local demand.
Below is the cost breakdown.
Cost for one tray of microgreens
The total cost for producing a 1020 tray of microgreens is about $3-5. It covers the fixed and variable costs, including the soil, water, seed, tray, electricity, and packaging.
When considering how to sell microgreens, these costs are the basic requirement to run the whole business.
Tray & clamshell container
For each 1020 growing tray, it may cost you $2-4, like this one, for example. If you are buying in bulk, it works out cheaper (ten pack here). Also, please note that some trays do not come with drain holes. For packaging containers, each clamshell container should cost $0.2 or lesser.
Microgreen Seed
You may not know that different microgreen seeds will have a different germination rate (see germination and growing time here). And also for the quality seed from your suppliers. So, you probably have to invest in good quality seeds, like at True leaf Market. Their seeds quality is more consistentand better.
Learn regular seeds vs. microgreen seeds(see #9 and #10).
Also,
Therefore, you have to check with your local market, do some calculations, and research in advance.
Soil/media
As we discussed earlier for the best soil for microgreens, where I outlined all the important factors for good soil, making your own potting soil is the best way to reduce cost. Added to that, soil can be reused over and over again.
In contrast, growing pads are expensive and non-sustainable, which I don’t recommend.
The ideal cost for potting mix should be ~$1/ tray. The cost may fluctuate depending on your mix. For example, coconut coir is a more expensive choice than
Water and electricity
Water and electricity are variable costs. For common indoor vertical farming, electricity is needed to run the equipment such as the lighting system, pump, fans, dehumidifier, and more. It adds up to another $1.5 cost per tray.
Other expenses to consider
Other than the basic cost above, there are other expenses to consider, such as the laborcost, hardware, insurance, shipping, taxes, consumables, and more. As these variable costs are different for each seller, we will not cover them in detail here. Remember, small fees can add up huge.
Earning for one tray of microgreens
The average selling price for microgreens is $25 – 40 per pound.
As for each 1020 tray, the average yield is between 8 – 12 oz per harvest (7-14 days). That means you will be able to earn at least $12.5 – 18.8 per tray of microgreens. Then, deduct the cost for producing this tray, which is $3-5 in my case, you will get
That’s a pretty good margin for such a short turnaround time.
The number of seeds per 1020 tray
So, what’s the lowest seed density to achieve the best outcome? The seeding rate largely depending on the volume and the weight of the seeds.
Generally, you will need to sprinkle more seeds for larger seeds while lesser for the smaller seeds.
The larger seeds occupy more space; therefore we will need to add more seeds to compensate for the unused soil. In contrast, the small seeds get overcrowded easily if added too many, which is one of the 7 reasons why microgreens falling over.
There is no clear-cut answer for seed density, and everything is based on experience.
To ease the pain, I have prepared a calculator for you. Input the length of the containers (1020 tray is the default) in the columns below, you will get an estimated ideal weight and volume of seeds for the respective varieties.
Microgreen Seeding Rate/Seed Density Calculator
Alternatively, check out this article in which I outlined the 87 types of microgreens and their seeding rates.
The yield per tray
The yield per tray of microgreens depends on the variety (and how thick) you planted.
For microgreens such as basil, cilantro, cabbage, amaranth, and broccoli, are usually in between 8-12 oz per tray. The seed density is 0.5-2 oz per flat. You can use the seed density calculator above to help you with that.
As for microgreens such as radish, sunflower, and pea, these usually produce 1-2 lb of yield per tray. It all comes down to the way you grow them and also the seed quality. The seed density should be 2-6 oz per flat.
The bar graph I created below showed that the seed density versus the yield for 20 types of common microgreens:
The best microgreens to sell
Everything boils down to this question: which microgreen is best to grow and most profitable to sell? It depends.
In my case here, I noticed the market has a huge demand for radish microgreen which are provided by only a handful of farmers at a relatively high price, so it’s probably a good direction to go.
Some microgreen growers strategically focus on high-yield fast-growing baby greens such as sunflower microgreens which only take about a week to grow. So, it depends on your business strategy.
Here are a few criteria to consider:
- Time to grow – The time needed to grow microgreens from start to finish. Some microgreens can be harvested in just 5 days, while others may take up to 25 days—ideally, the shorter, the better.
- Market Demand – Research carefully for the buyer intent, the latest trend, market volume, and more. For instance, sunflower microgreens may have a high demand.
- Competition– Identify your competitors. Product quality, service, and pricing are the 3 main factors to stay ahead of other microgreen growers.
- Profit margin– The reasonable earnings to keep your microgreen business plan sustainable.
So, what’s your business plan for microgreens? Do you think this helps work out how to sell microgreens? Let me know below.
Further reading:
- Mold or root-hair of microgreens? It’s confusing.
- Microgreens vs sprouts.
Last update on 2022-12-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
