A trader selling ugu is not primarily selling ugu. She is selling the fact that the leaves are here, today, in the quantity you want, having survived a journey that would have destroyed them if anyone had been careless.
The transport is the cost that moves. Fuel, the state of the road and how many times the load is handled between the farm and the stall account for more of the final price than the farmer's margin does, and by a wide margin.
- Stockfish keeps, which is why it is priced against storage rather than freshness.
- Leaves do not keep at all, which is why ugu is cheapest in the first hour and again in the last.
- Tomatoes are the most perishable thing on most stalls and the most likely to be sold at a loss by afternoon.
