Glad you liked my review. This is a big part of my own and my family's identity. I've calculated this before and should be able to reproduce. This year, we've

Glad you liked my review. This is a big part of my own and my family's identity. I've calculated this before and should be able to reproduce. This year, we've bought 14 flats of organic strawberries at $16/ flat = $224. Once destemmed and washed, it is about 9-10 kilos of fruit, so rounding up, we need 10 kilos of sugar. Sugar is cheap but I get organic (although there really isn't much difference) and I get it from Costco so it's about a buck/pound, so two bucks/kilo, so about $20 All canning needs an acid like lemon juice otherwise it's just too sweet. I buy nice lemons and squeeze them (more expensive). Assume about 20 lemons at a ~1 each, so $20. You could get away with just lemon juice (cheaper). The jars are $15 for 12. New ones come with lids, but if I reuse it, I have to buy lids. That made 16 jars of strawberry (I pack it pretty tight) and another 20 jars of syrup (I consider that a waste product, but it does make good lemonade) If you just count the costs, you are looking at $224 (fruit) + $20 (sugar) + $20 (lemons) + $15 jars = $279, ahh let's just round it to $290. That's ~$18/jar in raw materials. It takes a full day to do this. Few hours for stemming, couple of hour for cooking, sterilizing jars, an hour for cleaning. You have to do it in batches. My children labor for destemming is free (I'll pay for it come college education time), and so is my wife. There is some cost of gas stove running and electricity and water for cleanup. Considering how highly compensated my time is ordinarily, the cost per jar climbs up. As I said, it is not a way to reduce your costs. If one wants cheap, you go to Costco and get bunch of Smuckers ;-)