Fig. 37: Revenues at different treatments

4.4.5 Profit margin

The profit margin is a parameter for the economy of growing a crop. It is calculated by substracting the variable costs from the revenues. The revenues itself, is the product of the price of the sale of the fruits and kg yield. For each kg of tomatoes, growers are getting about 560 ISK from Sölufélag garðyrkjumanna (SfG, The Horticulturists’ Sales Company) and in addition 130 ISK from the government. Therefore, the revenues increased with more yield (Fig. 37). The light source in continuous production had a small influence on the revenue, whereas a higher profit margin was reached by having HPS lights in young plant production.

Fig. 37: Revenues at different treatments.

When considering the results of previous chapter, one must keep in mind that there are other cost drivers in growing tomatoes than electricity alone (Tab. 10). Among others, this are e.g. the costs for seeds and seedling production (≈ 400 ISK/m2) and transplanting (≈ 400 ISK/m2), costs for gutters (≈ 100 ISK/m2), and watering system (≈ 350 ISK/m2), costs for plant nutrition (≈ 330 ISK/m2), costs for plant protection and bumblebees, CO2 transport (≈ 200 ISK/m2), liquid CO2 (≈ 1.600 ISK/m2), the rent of the tank (≈ 460 ISK/m2), the rent of the green box (≈ 100 ISK/m2), material for packing (≈ 500 ISK/m2), packing costs with the machine from SfG (≈ 200 ISK/m2) and transport costs from SfG (≈ 150 ISK/m2) (Fig. 38).