Does picking your own fruit actually save you money?
Pick-your-own farms are sold as a bargain day out, but whether they actually beat the supermarket on price is a genuinely mixed answer. It depends on the crop, the season, and how far you have to drive to get there. Below are real per-kilo prices from farms listed on this site, set against typical farmers-market and supermarket prices, plus the petrol-and-entry-fee maths that most price comparisons never bother to do.
The honest answer
Start with the honest version: pick-your-own is sometimes cheaper than the supermarket, and sometimes it isn't — the crop matters more than most people expect. Cherries, which carry a steep shop mark-up, are where u-pick prices most often come out ahead. Apples, already cheap on the shelf, are the crop where picking your own rarely saves money. Strawberries swing on timing: a genuine supermarket glut and the shop can match the farm gate; scarce, pricey shop strawberries and the farm usually wins. None of this counts the drive, the entry fee some farms charge, or the fruit you'll eat straight off the plant before it reaches a bag. For entry fees and per-kilo rates across every crop, see our fruit-picking cost guide, which asks a different question — what picking costs, not whether it beats the alternative.
Strawberries, cherries and apples: the real per-kilo numbers
The table below sets real farm prices from this site against typical Australian farmers-market and supermarket prices for the same fruit. The farm figures are exact; the farmers-market and supermarket figures are general ranges rather than a single verified source, since both move with season and state — treat them as a guide to scale, not a live quote.
| Crop | U-pick (real farm prices) | Farmers market (typical) | Supermarket (typical) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strawberries | $13.50/kg + $5 entry (Beerenberg Farm, Hahndorf SA) up to $25/kg (Bidgee Strawberries and Cream, Wagga Wagga NSW) | Roughly $8–12/kg | Roughly $8–14/kg in a genuine glut; $20–30+/kg when scarce | Even money at best — wins outside the glut window |
| Cherries | $10/kg, no entry fee (Allambie Orchard, Wombat NSW) | Roughly $16–22/kg | Roughly $18–30+/kg, dearest early in the season | The clearest potential saving of the three |
| Apples | From $4/kg (Atlanta Orchards, Moorooduc VIC) | Roughly $4–5/kg | Roughly $3.50–6/kg | Rarely cheaper once the drive is added |
Strawberries — close, and it comes down to timing
Strawberry pricing sits closest to shop prices of any crop, which is why timing decides the winner more than the pricing model does. Beerenberg Farm in the Adelaide Hills, SA, charges $5 entry (kids 12 and under free) plus $13.50/kg. A & C Berry Farm at Landers Shoot, QLD, charges a flat $15/kg. Belstack Strawberry Farm at Kialla West, VIC, prices around $16/kg, and at the pricier end, Bidgee Strawberries and Cream in Wagga Wagga, NSW, charges $5 entry plus $25/kg — a rate that only clearly beats the supermarket when shop strawberries are scarce, not during a glut. Berrylicious Strawberries at Thirlmere, NSW, runs a different model: $22 for an adult all-you-can-eat ticket in its greenhouse, or $25/kg to take fruit home — logic covered in our guide to how pick-your-own pricing works. Check current strawberry-picking farms near you and compare against that week's supermarket price first.
Cherries — the crop most likely to actually save you money
Cherries are the strongest case for pick-your-own on price alone, since shop cherries carry one of the steepest mark-ups of any common fruit. Allambie Orchard, at Wombat in NSW's Riverina, charges no entry fee and $10/kg picked (cardboard boxes 50c extra) — undercutting a reasonable farmers-market stall, let alone a supermarket shelf early in the season. Ballinaclash Orchard & Cellar Door at Young, NSW, takes a different approach: a $5 per-person entry fee (children under 6 free) rather than a per-kilo charge, suiting a family planning to eat plenty in the patch. Pricing isn't always current, though — a December 2024 social post attributed to Ballarat Cherry Farm in Victoria's Grampians region cited cherries at roughly $15/kg with no entry, but the farm's own site skips pricing and points visitors to Facebook each season, so treat that as indicative, not confirmed. Even at the higher end, cherries rarely cost more at the gate than in a shop bag at Christmas — exactly when demand, and supermarket prices, peak. Browse the full list of cherry-picking farms to compare more.
Apples — rarely the cheaper option, and that's fine
Apples are the crop where the pick-your-own price advantage mostly disappears, since apples are already cheap and efficient to grow at scale. Atlanta Orchards, trading as Ten Sixty One Cider at Moorooduc on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, prices its pick-your-own apples from $4/kg — competitive with a supermarket special, not dramatically cheaper. Some orchards don't publish a number at all: Lenswood Pick Your Own in the Adelaide Hills, SA, prices apples per kilogram but doesn't list the rate online, and Bilpin Fruit Bowl in NSW's Hawkesbury region simply charges for what you pick — both a call-ahead-or-see proposition rather than a guaranteed bargain. That doesn't make apple picking a bad idea; it just means the case for going rests on the orchard itself, not the discount. See the full list of apple-picking farms to compare a specific orchard's rate first.
What the drive actually costs
Every comparison above ignores the cost of getting there, and that's usually the bigger number. A rough rule of thumb for what a kilometre costs to drive — fuel, tyres and wear counted, not just petrol — sits around 80–90 cents, so a 100km round trip costs roughly $80–90 before any fruit is picked. Take cherries as the best case: at Allambie Orchard's $10/kg with no entry fee, saving $15/kg against a typical supermarket price means picking 6–8kg just to cover a $90 round trip — easy for a family filling boxes, harder for one punnet. Apples make the maths harder again: saving $1–2/kg barely dents a $50–80 round trip. It's the line item every price comparison should include and rarely does — and why a farm 20–30 minutes away is a different proposition, cost-wise, to one two hours off.
The day-out value the spreadsheet misses
None of the above accounts for what you're paying for beyond the fruit. Farms with an all-you-can-eat model make this explicit: Berrylicious Strawberries' $22 adult ticket only makes sense once eating in the greenhouse counts as part of the deal, not a bonus on a kilo price — a distinction covered in our eat-as-you-pick vs pay-by-weight guide. There's also no food-miles cost, and the fruit was on the plant an hour ago rather than in cold storage for a week — worth something even if it's hard to price. For a family outing, see our guide to fruit picking with kids before you go, since a toddler-friendly patch changes the day more than the price per kilo does. Come home with more than you can eat, and knowing how to store and freeze your pick stops a good haul spoiling before the saving is realised. For broader pricing patterns, see our pick-your-own pricing statistics.
So when does pick-your-own actually win?
- Cherries, more often than not — the supermarket mark-up is steep enough that even a decent drive can leave you ahead, as Allambie Orchard's numbers show.
- Strawberries outside the supermarket glut — check shop prices first; if punnets are cheap and plentiful, the farm gate is unlikely to beat them.
- Any crop, if you were already going for the day — once the drive is effectively free, almost any farm price beats the shop.
- Apples, rarely on price alone — go for the orchard experience and treat any saving as a bonus.
- Anywhere within a short drive of home — the closer the farm, the less the fuel maths matters, and the more a modest saving is worth banking.