Selling Microgreens to Grocery and Wholesale: The Payment Term Is the Real Negotiation

There is a federal law that decides whether you get paid when a produce buyer fails, and it turns on a number most growers accept without reading.

The payment term, and the line it crosses

The Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act puts sellers of fresh produce ahead of other creditors if a buyer goes under. That protection is not automatic in every case, and it has a deadline attached.

PACA's prompt payment is 10 days after acceptance. Anything slower has to be agreed in writing before the deal, and terms beyond 30 days after acceptance do not qualify for PACA trust protection at all.

Now hold that against what buyers actually offer. A USDA value chain case study reports net 21 in most of its cases and net 30 in a few, and describes retail food sector terms generally as 30 to 60 days.

So the upper half of the range a grocery buyer is likely to propose sits outside the protection. Accepting net 45 without noticing is not a cash flow decision, it is giving up your position in a bankruptcy. No page in this category mentions PACA at all, which is why this is the first section rather than a footnote.

Two things follow. Get the non-prompt term in writing before delivery, as the statute requires. And if you agree to something past 30 days, do it knowing what it costs rather than because it appeared on a form.

The cash gap is the smaller half of the problem and still real. At net 30 you have delivered and financed roughly four weeks of your own work before the first payment arrives. The labor in each of those trays is $2.21 to $5.00 and none of it has been paid.

What wholesale actually pays, from the one seller who publishes it

One seller lists the base retail price, the chef price and the distributor price for the same 4 ounce pack of the same crops on the same day. That is the cleanest comparison available anywhere in this category, because everything except the buyer is held constant.

Wholesale here is 67 percent of retail, not half. The advice pages say 40 to 60 percent, or about half off. The only actual published price list sits above every one of those claims.

And the two wholesale tiers are 13 points apart, not a chasm. A chef pays 80 percent of retail and a distributor 67. That refines rather than overturns what this site's pricing guide found across sellers, where restaurant wholesale ran well above grocery wholesale. Within one seller the same ordering holds and the gap is narrower.

Treat all of it as an offer, not a receipt. These are posted prices. Zero of six pages inspected on 2026-08-12 published an achieved wholesale price backed by a named invoice, a transaction dataset or an independently verified sale. The correct phrase for every figure in this category is a published offer, never what growers are paid.

One more posted quote, for scale. A New York wholesale listing showed rainbow microgreens at $24.95 per 8 ounce case on 2026-02-12, which is $3.12 an ounce or $49.90 a pound.

What a tray leaves at that price

Run the wholesale tier through this site's own published costs. The median published tray yield here is 7.055 ounces, computed from the yield field on all 62 crop entries.

That sits inside the only published enterprise budget. Missouri's budget models income over total cost at $5.84 to $19.45 a tray, and $11.64 to $14.43 falls within it. Two independent routes to the same neighborhood is worth more than either on its own.

What is not in that column is the whole point of this channel. Delivery, the audit, the insurance, the packaging spec and the payment delay are all real and none of them is in the price.

The audit, priced in trays

GAP is Good Agricultural Practices, a voluntary audit verifying practices meant to reduce microbial risk in growing, packing, handling and storage. It is not a license and it is not a guarantee that food is safe. The buyer usually specifies which audit type it wants.

USDA's fee schedule effective October 1, 2025 lists $171 an hour for federal and state audit verification and $250 per audit for GFSI certification.

How many hours an audit takes is not published, so only the hourly rate can be costed honestly. Against the contribution computed above:

• One audit hour costs 11.9 to 14.7 median trays of contribution.
• The $250 GFSI certification fee alone is 17.3 to 21.5 median trays.

Whether audits are commonly required of microgreen suppliers specifically is not established. What is documented is that requirements vary by buyer and can exceed regulation: a USDA study of retailers reports widespread audit requirements among those interviewed, while the Produce Safety Rule itself does not require retailer audits. One large grocer's published supplier expectations call for a GFSI-recognized certification or Harmonized GAP Plus, a certificate of insurance and a US tax identification.

Less formal routes are documented too, including an on-farm review, evidence of GAP or Produce Safety Alliance training, or a third-party audit. Ask the specific buyer before paying for anything. An independent grocer may want none of it.

What actually has to be on the pack, and what does not

This is where copied checklists do the most damage.

The traceability lot code does not have to be on the label. FDA's Food Traceability Rule requires the entity that initially packs a covered commodity to assign a traceability lot code and keep linked records, and it explicitly permits that code to travel by invoice, bill of lading, email or QR code instead of the package. Whether the rule covers you at all depends on the Food Traceability List and its exemptions, not on the fact that you sell to a store.

A nutrition panel is not automatically required either. FDA treats nutrition labeling for raw fruits and vegetables as voluntary unless a nutrient statement or claim is made.

What is defensible on a retail pack: a clear product identity, the responsible business or farm identity and address, and a net quantity declaration, plus whatever the state and the buyer's own specification add. For a covered qualified-exempt produce farm, FDA specifically requires the farm name and complete business address on the label or at the point of purchase.

A store can require a visible lot code, pack date or barcode as a private condition, and often does. That is a contract term rather than a federal rule, and the distinction matters because one is negotiable and the other is not. Ask which fields must be on the pack and which may sit on the delivery record.

Who owns it when it does not sell

Consignment and an outright sale are different transactions and the difference is title.

Under consignment the consignee sells on your behalf, title does not pass, and the consignee earns an agreed commission. You still own the product, so unsold stock is your exposure unless the agreement says otherwise. One grocery co-op publishes a 70/30 consignment model in which the producer owns the product until it sells, is paid from recorded sales, may reclaim or donate what does not sell, and shares theft and damage 70/30 after check-in.

Under an outright accepted purchase the buyer owns it. Rejection, condition and delivery terms can still shift specific losses back. USDA's guidance notes that a buyer who properly rejects product before acceptance can require the seller to mitigate, and that if the seller refuses, the buyer must make a good-faith sale and remit the net proceeds.

Which is more common for microgreens is not established. Conventional groceries generally buy and resell, while farm stop models run on consignment, and one extension service contrasts the two directly.

The practical point is that a margin percentage is not an agreement. Say in writing who pays for expiry, markdown, damage, recall, a rejected delivery and return transport.

What nobody can tell you about volume

No credible public account identifies a single grocery store's weekly microgreen requirement with crop, pack size and period. Not one.

Do not substitute a farm's total weekly output for it, and do not substitute a restaurant order, because a restaurant account is a different and much smaller thing.

So ask the buyer. Extension guidance is consistent on this: find out the ordering process, pack size, quality and product type before targeting the account, and only pursue buyers you can actually supply. Consistency is the requirement that comes up more than price.

Work the delivery cadence backwards from shelf life rather than forwards from convenience. A one day crop cannot absorb the same harvest to shelf to next delivery cycle as a twenty-one day one, and FDA guidance is that packaged produce should be refrigerated. Harvest and pack to leave a stated usable window rather than printing the longest date you can defend.

Cost the route itself. One extension marketing example assigns $43 per delivery day to direct-to-grocery, including $20 of mileage and $20 of travel time, for a non-microgreen product. It is an illustration and not a rate to copy, but it is the right shape: miles, paid time, vehicle refrigeration, the delivery minimum, unpaid check-in time and the loss from a missed drop.

What to actually do

• Read the payment term first and get any non-prompt term in writing before you deliver. Past 30 days after acceptance you are outside PACA trust protection.
• Model the cash gap in weeks of your own unpaid labor, not in days on an invoice.
• Ask for the buyer's vendor packet before promising anything. Insurance, food safety documentation, specifications and traceability method are buyer-specific and knowable in advance.
• Do not pay for an audit before a buyer asks for one, and ask which audit type they accept when they do.
• Settle title in writing. Outright sale or consignment, and who carries expiry, markdown, damage and returns.
• Ask which fields must be on the pack and which may live on the delivery record. The lot code usually may.
• Price per ounce internally even when you sell per pack, so you can compare a grocery offer to a chef offer to a market price on one scale.
• Do not set wholesale at half of retail because a page said so. The only published list is at 67 percent, and your own costs decide the floor.
• Treat every figure on this page as a snapshot with a place and a date attached. Prices, fees and wages move faster than anything else on this site.

What nobody has measured

• A same-SKU wholesale to shelf ratio, from supplier invoices matched to store shelf labels for the identical pack, weight and market.
• Wholesale price by crop and geography, from any invoice panel.
• Whether audits are commonly required of microgreen suppliers, as opposed to produce suppliers generally.
• Actual days to payment for small microgreen suppliers, from invoice and deposit records.
• A single store's weekly microgreen volume, with crop, pack and period.
• How consignment and outright purchase divide across grocery, co-op and distributor accounts.
• Whether slotting or listing fees are charged to small local microgreen suppliers. Their absence from public sources is not evidence they are never charged.
• How shelf life, delivery frequency and printed pack date relate to grocery shrink, from any timestamped cold chain trial.
• Approach to purchase order conversion, from any grower CRM. Testimonials are not a conversion rate.

Sources

Opened 2026-08-12. Every conversion is arithmetic performed for this page on the published figures below, at 16 ounces to the pound. The median tray yield of 7.055 oz was computed from the yield field on all 62 variety entries here; the labor, seed and budget figures are this site's own published guides, cited in the text.

• USDA AMS, the PACA trust - prompt payment at 10 days after acceptance, the requirement that non-prompt terms be agreed in writing beforehand, and that terms beyond 30 days after acceptance do not qualify for trust protection. The single most consequential fact on this page.
• USDA AMS, top contracting issues under PACA and common terms - the definition of consignment against an open or price-after-sale transaction, the passing of title, and what a buyer must do after properly rejecting product.
• USDA AMS, Moving Food Along the Value Chain (PDF) - net 21 in most of its cases and net 30 in a few, and the characterization of retail food sector terms as 30 to 60 days. A case study, not a measurement of microgreen payment delay.
• FDA, FSMA Produce Safety Rule - that coverage and exemptions turn on the farm and the product rather than on who the buyer is, and the requirement that a covered qualified-exempt farm show the farm name and complete business address on the label or at the point of purchase.
• FDA, traceability lot code - the assignment of a lot code at initial packing, the linked records and traceability plan, the flexibility of format, and the explicit statement that the rule does not require the code on the label or package.
• FDA, industry resources on the Nutrition Facts label - nutrition labeling for raw fruit and vegetables remains voluntary unless a nutrient statement or claim is made.
• FDA, selecting and serving produce safely - that pre-cut, bagged and packaged produce should be refrigerated.
• USDA AMS, GAP and GHP audit services and the fee schedule - what a GAP audit verifies, that the applicant chooses the audit type because customers specify one, and the fees effective 2025-10-01 of $171 an hour for federal and state audit verification and $250 per audit for GFSI certification. Total audit hours are not published.
• USDA ERS retailer demand report (PDF) - widespread audit requirements among the retailers interviewed, against a Produce Safety Rule that does not itself require retailer audits.
• NC State Extension, how to sell produce to distributors - the documented onboarding set: new vendor form, hold-harmless agreement, farm bio, certificate of liability insurance and GAP or FSMA certificates.
• Wegmans supplier food safety and quality assurance and Walmart audit and certification requirements - two named large-buyer requirement sets, quoted as buyer policy and not as law.
• Food Safety Resource Clearinghouse, retail purchasing checklist - the documented less formal assurance routes, including an on-farm review and training evidence.
• University of Minnesota Extension, direct farm marketing and marketing mix analysis - the guidance to ask about ordering process, pack size, quality and type before targeting a buyer, the consistency requirement, and the illustrative $43 per delivery day for direct-to-grocery including $20 mileage and $20 travel time, for a non-microgreen product.
• Arkansas Extension, the farm stop model and consignment approach (PDF) and Kennett Community Grocer's sell-with-us terms - the contrast between conventional grocery purchase and consignment, and a published 70/30 consignment model with an explicit theft and damage split.
• Johnny's Selected Seeds microgreens brochure (PDF) - that microgreens are commonly priced per tray, clamshell or bag rather than by weight, that price varies by region, demand and variety, and that clamshells protect the crop from crushing.
• Seller pages and advice pages, used as practice only: MicroFreshly wholesale pricing, the source of the whole three-tier table, the 33 percent distributor discount with a $350 minimum and the 20 percent chef discount with a $150 minimum; Foodomarket rainbow microgreens, $24.95 per 8 oz case on 2026-02-12; Farmoponics wholesale, the about-half-off guide with no microgreen SKU or transaction; FindHomegrown, the 40 to 60 percent claim and unverified price ranges; MicrogreensWorld and Microgreen Manager with its workbook (PDF), the two of six pages that lead to a tool or price service. Counted on 2026-08-12; a page count is not a claim about search rankings.