Growing fresh berries is a good business. Especially when it comes to strawberries. But those who believe that this is only possible in the summer are deeply mistaken. Modern technologies make it possible to produce tasty goods all year round. So the strawberry growing business can generate income constantly.
It must be said that fresh berries are in demand at any time of the year. Another question is that in winter there are only imported products of unknown origin on the shelves (these berries don’t even smell like strawberries) at incredible prices. And many people want to buy fragrant and high-quality strawberries. So if you decide to grow strawberries for sale, you will have virtually no competitors. It is enough just to set a real price for it, and the strawberry aroma of natural berries will speak for itself.
If you decide to grow strawberries and sell them through a retail chain, you will have to register as an individual entrepreneur. So, to legalize your activities and be able to trade your own harvest, you need:
Let's try to draw up a business plan for growing strawberries and start with the technology and necessary equipment. Many will be surprised, but growing strawberries in garden beds is a thing of the past. Today, to cultivate this berry, you do not need to plant a garden and fertilize it with manure. You can grow strawberries right in your city apartment! The main thing is to approach the issue correctly.
Let's start with the fact that the fruiting period for strawberries indoors is September - May. In summer, there is no economic sense in growing berries this way. But in order to get fresh strawberries already in September, and then trade them in the winter, you will need to create a mother plantation (the preparatory period for a strawberry business is about four months). To do this, you need to plant either ready-made seedlings or seeds (this option is preferable) in small growing boxes. The germination rate of strawberry seeds is quite low, so at best, half of what you sow will germinate. The main thing is to moisten the soil well and illuminate the plants (they need light 12 hours a day). When the seedlings have more or less taken root, you should carry out the first picking, planting them in a checkerboard pattern, and after a month and a half you need to repeat the procedure, but plant the seedlings in ready-made containers for strawberries. After this, your plantation is ready to bloom and bear fruit. However, do not forget that strawberry bushes need to be renewed every couple of years. This can be done using your own rosette seedlings that will appear on the mother bushes. Thus, it turns out that you will receive new planting material completely free of charge from your own strawberry plantation, as a by-product of production.
If you start a plantation at the end of spring, then by autumn the strawberries will be ready to bear fruit, which means that you will receive your first income in October. As soon as the season ends (this will be at the end of May), the emerging flower stalks will need to be removed, preventing the strawberries from bearing fruit. This tactic promotes the production of new planting material, as the bushes will begin to grow mustaches, on which young rosettes will appear. It is these that can later be used to update the plantation.
Based on these criteria, you can choose one or several different varieties and start growing them.
If you have planted, grown and harvested strawberries, then a new question arises: where and how to sell them. First of all, we recommend that you read this information. Although it’s worth thinking about how to sell a product at the business planning stage. Today there are several options:
But before you start trading or enter into an agreement with a supermarket or wholesale company, you need to take care of obtaining documents, without which trading strawberries will be illegal. This is about:
Home business growing strawberries is quite a profitable business. But here it is important to correctly approach the organization of the work process and optimize costs.
If you plan to grow strawberries indoors in your own apartment, then your plantation will not be more than 80 square meters (even if the containers are installed in three rows). This means that the daily harvest will not exceed 10-12 kilograms of fresh berries. Therefore, you can serve and process (including packaging in baskets) all the strawberries yourself, without involving additional labor. Therefore, the costs of renting premises or land, wages for hired workers, special equipment, work clothes and additional packaging will not hit your pocket.
So, let’s calculate the necessary investments, expenses and income, taking into account that you will grow strawberries yourself in your home, without hiring employees, and you will sell the berries through a wholesale company.
In order to start growing strawberries you will need 106,000 rubles.
Monthly costs for growing strawberries are minimal and only include electricity, since the lamps providing 12-hour illumination of the plants will also warm the room, raising the air temperature to the required level. As for irrigation, there is no waste of water with a drip irrigation system.
Taking into account that a strawberry plantation organized on 120 square meters of area will be 80 square meters, the average monthly harvest will be 4 kilograms of berries per square meter, that is, a total of 320 kilograms. Let's calculate income:
Taking into account monthly expenses, the net profit will be 130,000 rubles. The profitability of such a business is 70%, and all initial costs for equipment, planting material and electricity during the creation of a uterine plantation will be recouped in two months of selling berries.
Strawberries are a tasty and healthy berry, the cultivation of which for the purpose of building a business can bring good profits. If the owner of such an enterprise follows all the recommendations and requirements regarding the cultivation of strawberries, then he will be able to get a good income, especially in the summer, when the season begins.
If you organize the growing procedure correctly, the strawberry business will be able to generate profit all year round.
Growing strawberries all year round becomes a very profitable business, because in one season you can collect about 20 tons of tasty, ripe and juicy berries from 1 hectare. And in some cases, the yield can reach 50 tons! Suppliers set the highest prices for their goods out of season or at the very beginning of it. Usually the harvest begins from mid-spring to the end of autumn.
To start such a business, an entrepreneur will need to make a certain monetary contribution, purchase seedlings, auxiliary materials for planting and care, fertilizers, and create an effective irrigation system. Perhaps the main advantage of this area is that this berry does not require any special care or the use of expensive technological solutions.
When starting a new business, the first thing an entrepreneur needs to do is create an effective business plan.
For this purpose, a study of the advantages and disadvantages of the activity is carried out. A novice businessman should understand that the accessibility of a business and a low level of capital investment are not yet a harbinger of success. At the start, problems will certainly arise, the skillful resolution of which will allow the new business to develop in the right direction.
Strawberries are often grown in greenhouses, since this approach allows for a year-round harvest. In open ground, this berry bears fruit in the spring and summer, but in greenhouse conditions the berries can be picked at any time of the year. In addition, the greenhouse growing procedure has a number of other positive properties:
Among the significant disadvantages of greenhouse cultivation are:
In modern gardening, there are several ways to grow strawberries. Each of them has its own characteristics and advantages. Among these methods there are those that are used most often:
Growing in open ground is cheaper at cost, but the entrepreneur will receive a much smaller harvest than when cultivating berries in a greenhouse. The use of special equipment is not required here.
Growing in greenhouse conditions is a more complex process, but this does not detract from its popularity among professional gardeners. The main advantage is the ability to harvest all year round.
Out of season, an entrepreneur can set a higher price for berries without increasing his own costs. However, to cultivate plants in a greenhouse you will have to spend more money than when growing them in open ground.
The Dutch cultivation method involves planting mustaches in special long bags (their size reaches two meters in length). Fertile soil is poured inside the bags before planting. Next, holes with a diameter of about 8 cm are made across the entire surface of the bag, and they should be located in a checkerboard pattern. It is in them that the seedling is planted.
The main advantage of the Dutch method lies in the fact that even in small areas you can grow a large crop of strawberries. You can hang bags of shoots not only in greenhouses, but also in any heated rooms. This could be a garage, balcony, barn, etc. The main thing is to properly organize the cultivation system, think through the principles of irrigation and proper lighting.
To develop your business, it is better to purchase strawberry shoots (tendrils) of the first or second order. As for the varieties of this berry, it is better to give preference to those that have a well-developed rosette part and also have fairly strong roots.
The level of berry yield also plays a big role in choosing a variety. Among the most successful varieties that are most suitable for building a business are:
Strawberry productivity depends not only on the correctly chosen variety. Proper care is of great importance, as is compliance with recommendations when planting a mustache.
It is first recommended to place strawberry seedlings in small pots filled with a peat mixture. These containers must have drainage holes that will ensure the drainage of excess moisture during watering. If they are not there, the roots will begin to rot. It is advisable to purchase soil for planting in specialized garden stores. However, if desired, you can prepare it yourself by taking ordinary soil from your garden plot and treating it with a high concentration of potassium permanganate solution.
If you prepare the soil yourself, then you should definitely add fertilizers containing nitrogen, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus.
In the first ten days of April The seedlings can now be transplanted into open ground. After harvesting in the first season, it is definitely recommended to thoroughly plow the plantation where the strawberries grew. This will make it possible to increase the yield of berries in the next season.
Caring for the plant requires regular but moderate watering. This procedure is carried out at the root, and it is advisable not to touch or injure the fruits and leaves of the plant. The optimal solution is drip irrigation technology.
If strawberries are grown in greenhouses in winter, then the entrepreneur needs to take care of protecting the berries from frost. Plants will do well at a temperature of +18-20 degrees. It is good if they are pollinated artificially and periodically fed with nitrogen. Pollination of strawberry inflorescences on small plantations is done manually. To do this, pollen is transferred from the pistils to the stamens using a brush.
If the planting area is large, then pollination can be carried out, creating conditions as close as possible to natural ones. If in nature pollen is transferred from flower to flower by a wind flow, then in a greenhouse it is worth creating such a flow with the help of a switched on fan. In summer, you can install hives with bees on the site. These hard workers will help pollinate the flower stalks.
To ensure the prosperity of a business, it is necessary to collect berries correctly and efficiently. The harvest should not be crushed or damaged, so after harvesting strawberries should not be poured from box to box. Ideally, it is better to collect it in pre-prepared boxes, which are then sent to the place where the products are sold. The optimal container would be plastic boxes or plastic baskets.
The method of implementation depends mainly on the season. In summer, producers send berries to the market, and in winter - to supermarkets. It should be noted that supermarkets have high demands on the quality of berries, so the supplier must carefully monitor it.
There is a third implementation option. The berries can be sold to processors involved in the production of various juices, yoghurts, jams and other goodies. In this direction it is possible to sell about 30% of the harvest.
Most experts agree that individual retail outlets for selling homemade strawberries will not always be profitable for an entrepreneur. In winter, he will have to establish cooperation with the owners of supermarkets, where, in fact, about 80% of the harvest goes. In spring and summer, the berry is in greater demand in the markets.
In order for home growing to be effective, an entrepreneur needs to invest heavily in starting his business. It is advisable to store the collected berries in the refrigerator, so you should take care of purchasing such a unit in advance. A good refrigeration chamber will allow the product to remain in its marketable condition for two weeks.
Start-up costs are related to the following aspects:
This design can be polycarbonate, film frame or glass. The most inexpensive is a film greenhouse. A glass greenhouse provides the opportunity for year-round cultivation of berries. However, equipping a glass room will require large financial investments, which is not always advisable for a novice entrepreneur.
The golden mean in this case would be a greenhouse structure made of polycarbonate. It is a frame structure for which there is no need to build a foundation. The frame is made of galvanized metal, and polycarbonate sheets are already attached to it. Such a greenhouse maintains optimal temperature conditions, and polycarbonate allows a large amount of sunlight to penetrate inside. Polycarbonate structures are recommended by many experts as the optimal solution for year-round cultivation of berries.
Business profitability is a concept that provides for the relationship between its cost and the profit received. You can determine the profitability of an activity by finding out either its cost or the cost of growing berries with the addition of a trade margin.
How is the cost determined? It is made up of the price of planting material, building rent, fertilizers, and payment of wages to employees. If the scale of the business is small, then the entrepreneur has the opportunity to reduce costs by independently performing the cultivation procedure, without resorting to the help of hired workers. The cost of strawberries per 1 kg averages $1.5.
Many entrepreneurs experience an increase in profits in the strawberry business in the winter, when it is very difficult to get such berries.
A few years ago, the cost of strawberries per 1 kg was about $6. If the manufacturer uses modern technologies, he will certainly be able to achieve a significant increase in yield (from 40 to 50 tons can be harvested from 1 hectare). If you make calculations, it will become clear that for such a harvest the entrepreneur will be able to receive $225 thousand net income. The profitability in this example will be 75%, which is very good.
Many professionals who have been involved in strawberry cultivation for a long time say that the profitability of this area is almost 100%. Moreover, all invested funds will pay off very quickly - literally for 1-2 seasons.
In the video you will hear a detailed story about caring for this berry using modern methods:
Ecology of business: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antropov has been growing strawberries professionally since 1976. Currently, the cultivation area of this berry is 2 hectares.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antropov has been growing strawberries professionally since 1976. Currently, the cultivation area of this berry is 2 hectares. Drip irrigation and a scientifically based system of chemical treatments and biological fertilizing are used:
Three chemical treatments (spring eradication - Preparation 30, spring against insects - Bi-58 + Kuprostat, against ticks at the end of the season - Preparation 30 in lower concentrations);
Biological fertilizing (during the entire season with a frequency of 15 days, a total of 10 sprayings).
The farm uses about 30 different varieties of strawberries, mostly remontant ones, but also early, mid-early, late and mid-late varieties.
The technology used for growing strawberries, along with the variety of varieties, allows us to produce marketable strawberries from May until frost. In addition, the farm grows strawberries for seedlings. The seminar participants were happy to purchase on site not only sweet berries, but also proven varieties in terms of good yield, taste, and disease resistance - “Albion”, “Charlotte”, “Temptation”, “Irma”.
Strawberries are very beautiful and aromatic, and their taste is incomparable to any other berry, but growing them on an industrial scale will require a lot of effort and material resources. And then the question immediately arises - is it worth doing this at all, or is there no point in competing with imported berries, which are in abundance on the market?! A comprehensive answer to this question was given at the seminar, based on many years of practical experience, leaving no doubt that growing strawberries is an economically profitable business in the current market conditions.
According to Vladimir Aleksandrovich, even from a small plot you can get a good result if you follow the technology, and those present were presented with a detailed calculation of the economic efficiency for a strawberry growing area of 0.5 hectares.
From the presented calculations it is clear that the main costs fall on:
Purchase of seedlings; 20,000 of them will be needed for the specified area. It is better to purchase seedlings in cups. This is an expensive business - 1,200,000 rubles, but such seedlings will take root better and produce a harvest within 2-3 months after planting. The price of ordinary seedlings is in the range of 15 - 20 rubles per 1 piece, but you will have to expect a harvest from them only next year;
- installation of drip irrigation, for this you purchase everything necessary (tape, pipes of various diameters, various adapters, taps, etc.), which will amount to about 29,900 rubles;
- a well with water of good chemical composition, so its depth should be about 15 meters. As well as a high-quality pump and other little things to organize an uninterrupted water supply, a total of 28,000 rubles.
- seasonal and off-season treatments against diseases and pests, as well as fertilizers. Everything is according to scientifically based standards and not a ruble should be spent in vain - 21,780 rubles. We must not forget that children will eat the berries;
- covering material or mulching film. Its service life is three years, but you will still need to spend a lot of money - 39,000 rubles. You can, of course, get by with cheaper means, for example, using straw or rice husks, but the berries become contaminated, their presentation is lost, and in wet weather picking them becomes almost impossible. Sunflower seed husks cannot be used - ripe strawberries get pricked by the sharp edges of the husk and lose their presentation;
- the cost of electricity, harvesting and purchasing the very baskets in which we are used to buying strawberries, all together - 300,000 rubles;
- additional costs for transport, fuels and lubricants, purchase of equipment, etc. – 100,000 rubles.
TOTAL we get - 1,718,680 rubles.
The yield of strawberries, for example, in America is about 3 kg per bush. In the region we have different conditions and different technologies, so we will proceed from a yield that is more realistic to our conditions - in the first year, taking into account three harvests (spring, summer, autumn), approximately 1.5 bulbs per bush. The price of strawberries varies at different times of the year - in the spring it is very expensive, in the summer it is much cheaper and in the fall the price of the berries rises again. On average, it turns out to be 100 rubles per basket. Further, it is not difficult to calculate that from a plot of 0.5 hectares where 20,000 strawberry bushes are planted in the first year, you can harvest a crop of 30,000 baskets and sell it for 3,000,000 rubles. Taking into account costs - 1,718,680 rubles, net profit in the first year will be 1,281,320 rubles. Almost no other agricultural production can compare with such profitability.
In the second year the situation looks even more optimistic. Costs are significantly reduced:
- for repair of drip irrigation (tape) – 7,000 rubles;
- electricity – 30,000 rubles;
- chemical and biological treatments – 21,780 rubles;
- harvesting costs – 270,000 rubles;
- additional expenses – 100,000 rubles.
TOTAL – RUB 428,780.
The yield will increase to 2 bulbs per bush and will amount to 40,000 pieces in the total harvest volume. Let’s take the previous price (100 rubles) - we get revenue of 4,000,000 rubles and net profit of 3,571,220 rubles.
It is best to have two adjacent plots of 0.5 hectares each. Since, according to the technology for growing strawberries, in the third year you will have to change the plot and transfer the entire technology to another. If the plots are adjacent, then costs are minimized. published
Personal farming is becoming more and more popular and is increasingly reaching the market level. Such a business brings in good money, and it is also full of options for running it. Today we will look at growing strawberries as a business: profitability, self-sufficiency, reviews from successful entrepreneurs and their recommendations on how to avoid various troubles. Let's begin.
The strawberry business has a low barrier to entry and we will dwell on this point in more detail later. In addition, growing produce at home is quite easy and does not require too much equipment. But there are also disadvantages.
The organization requires quite high costs for heating and water consumption, especially in winter. If you fail to set up enough heating in the winter, you will not be able to grow berries suitable for sale. In addition, you will constantly have to care for the plants.
It is unlikely that the owner of such a production will allow strangers to be in his own home, so your time will be spent on caring for strawberries, and although growing strawberries is not difficult, it is time-consuming. Remember that the self-sufficiency of this business is really high; a season is enough to recoup the opening costs.
You can grow strawberries in a greenhouse or in open ground, and the choice here is quite easy.
The open ground option is quite constraining for the entrepreneur, since the berries will bear fruit only from May to June, while winter production is completely impossible. A greenhouse is more suitable, and here’s why:
Undoubtedly, the advantages are good, but it would be wrong not to note the disadvantages of the greenhouse. The disadvantages are the following:
Analyze the disadvantages and advantages of different options and choose what your industrial strawberry cultivation will be like.
In the case of home production, entrepreneurship depends solely on how successfully you purchase seeds and how tasty your berries turn out. In addition, the variety of strawberry affects the success of its cultivation in certain conditions.
Due to the fact that the berry reproduces with “whiskers”, remember that for business it is worth purchasing plants that have grown from “whiskers” of the first and second order. It is important to monitor the development of the rosette, the strength of the roots and directly find out about the yield indicator.
Here are the best varieties of strawberries according to many entrepreneurs:
In addition to these representatives, professionals note decent characteristics and predisposition to growing in nurseries in the following varieties:
We continue to search for the necessary premises for breeding. Of course, you can buy a separate plot where the greenhouse will be maintained, but the necessary acres are now difficult and expensive to find, so it’s worth asking yourself the question of finding land at the very beginning. If the search for a site is completed, then it’s time to find out what kind of greenhouses should be installed for industrial cultivation.
They are sold in the following types:
Greenhouses of the latter type are the most budget-friendly and affordable, therefore they are more often bought up by novice entrepreneurs, but this is wrong. The diaper usually does not help protect plants from banal frosts, not to mention really low temperatures.
A glass nursery is better suited in this case; besides, the walls allow for excellent heating of the area inside. But the downside is the need for a special foundation, for which some people have neither money nor enough space.
Polycarbonate greenhouses are the most expensive, but the most effective in this business. They do not require a special foundation, are durable and really do their job honestly. Strawberries grown in a polycarbonate greenhouse all year round will recoup the costs of the business within a season, so it is better not to skimp if possible.
Once you download it, you can use it to create your own.
Your future business is based on growing strawberries, so you need to be sure that you will be able to grow the crop correctly. For cultivation in a greenhouse nursery, avid gardeners have established two main types of strawberry cultivation.
The first one is really simple and understandable even for a novice entrepreneur: you need to strew the soil with strawberries in special separate containers. It is the area of the nursery that influences the number of containers and their arrangement: in a row, in a cascade, vertically. You just need to prepare the most convenient layout and not worry about the soil under the greenhouse.
There is also a second option, the most popular among people already experienced in this field, which helps grow strawberries on an industrial scale. It is called Dutch and it is assumed that strawberry or wild strawberry seedlings must be planted in special bags with soil two meters long.
The seedlings themselves are planted through separate holes eight centimeters in diameter. This method wins over the first in that it allows you to fill much more space with plants. You can hang the bags, lay them out on the balcony, place them in the garage - it is important that the plants receive a sufficient amount of lighting and nutrition, as well as protection from external influences.
Whatever option you choose to grow strawberries all year round, it is important to properly approach the care of the plant and timely procedures. Here are some main rules and recommendations:
Your business idea is to independently grow strawberries for sale, because you are solely interested in the fact that the grown strawberries can be sold in stores or in the hands of other people. Be sure to follow the implementation of each point.
Enough money was spent on the opening, so I want to recoup the costs as quickly as possible. Having grown your own strawberries, it is important to make them look marketable and pleasing to the eye.
Home business allows you to treat the fruits more carefully, so be sure to try not to overfill or unnecessarily rearrange the strawberries. The truly correct solution is to collect the berries in plastic one-kilogram containers and transport them to the place where the goods are sold.
Where to start selling your own products? There is a dependence on the season. During the summer, it is quite effective to sell homemade berries at the market. In some cities, you may even be able to find a free corner or space near other vendors, but it is important to make arrangements to trade at your chosen location.
Winter time opens up more chances to earn money by selling berries yourself and selling them in supermarkets. Your project has the right to enter into an agreement for the supply of products, fulfilling the requirements of the store. It is also possible to build connections with strawberry processors for the production of juices, yoghurts and other products.
Video: growing strawberries - how to get large berries?
To begin with, it is worth making a mini-table with an approximate list of expenses and amounts that will be spent on opening and starting this business.
Remember that you will have to spend some money monthly on purchases, utilities and transport services, as well as other costs. It’s even easier to figure out income: getting 5 kilos of berries from one square meter, a total of 1,500 kilos is collected from three acres. On average, you can earn 500 rubles per kilo of strawberries. In a month, a sale can bring in about 750 thousand rubles!
Well, in winter, the price of berries increases significantly, so from paying monthly expenses on average for the year you will receive 240 thousand, which makes the strawberry business a leader in profitability. In addition, in the future it will be possible to expand plantations and recruit workers.
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If you think that the strawberry growing business is highly limited by seasonality, then we hasten to convince you otherwise. Today, there are a number of proven technologies that allow you to obtain a stable strawberry harvest all year round. In addition, these technologies for growing strawberries all year round do not impose restrictions on the size of the plantation and its geographical location. It all depends on the scale we have planned.
Expert opinion
Roman Efremov
Work experience: 5 years. Specialization: all areas of jurisprudence.
The strawberry growing business is in quite high demand in Russia. This ripe berry enjoys the constant love of citizens. Therefore, the business owner will not have any special problems with the subsequent sale of his products.Among the key advantages of this business model are:
Legal registration of business
In the overwhelming majority of markets, we come across strawberry sellers who are not registered in any way. Goods from private household plots (personal household plots) are not subject to taxes and do not require legal registration. However, we want to create a stable and fairly serious business, so this scheme is not suitable for us or should be applied before the first profit. When you understand that the business is working and generating income, you must register immediately.
It doesn’t matter at all whether our business is located within the city or outside it, whether we lease or own agricultural land, anyway, with this type of business we fall under the Unified Agricultural Tax.
Thus, from a tax and legal point of view, our business is easily registered and we can calmly move on to other articles of our business plan. In addition, we should not forget that the state always supports agricultural producers, this applies to both bank loans and the attitude of officials to the ordinary problems of an entrepreneur.
Sales of products
To sell our products, we will need a number of documents: a declaration of conformity to GOST R. and a phytosanitary certificate for strawberries.
This is mandatory documentation and we cannot do without it. Let's talk about them briefly.
GOST R. Declaration of Conformity is a document stating that the product at the time of its examination and testing complies with all technical regulations and regulatory documents. This declaration is obtained by the SES and veterinary authorities. city laboratories. Since the regulatory framework in our country is constantly changing, you need to visit these structures in advance and find out all the nuances. The best option is if you have friends who work in these structures, they will explain all the nuances and help you quickly prepare these documents.
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