In short and in plain language
This article shows what a farm shop website needs.
Customers want to know if you are open today. They also want to know what is in stock. That belongs right at the top.
Many people look for food from their region and in season.
Your produce changes often. So the site must be quick to update. You can do that yourself from your phone.
Even a small farm shop usually needs an imprint and allergen details. We build the site for you at a fixed price.
A farm shop lives on two things: on the produce, and on people knowing when it is there. Both change from week to week. Asparagus stops around midsummer, strawberries come and go, in autumn the pumpkins pile up by the door, and in between a selling day is cancelled because the harvest takes everyone. That is exactly the information customers look for on their phone in the evening - and often fail to find, because the farm exists online only as an entry in a map service. Yet the demand is well documented: 79 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) of respondents look for fruit and vegetables to be in season when they shop, and 77 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) look for produce from their own region. This article shows which pages a farm shop website needs, which details are required by law and how to keep the site current in five minutes in the middle of the season - without anyone else having to sit down at a computer.
Key takeaways
- The first question is rarely "what does it cost" but "are you open today and what is in stock". Opening hours with a date and a short seasonal note therefore belong right at the top.
- Demand for regional produce is well documented: 77 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) look for food from their own region, 79 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) look for fruit and vegetables in season.
- Direct marketing is a second pillar for many farms: 54 percent (Federal Statistical Office) of farms had additional sources of income in 2023, and for 26 percent (Federal Statistical Office) of those farms it was direct marketing.
- Harvest volumes swing sharply: 71,300 tonnes (Federal Statistical Office) of open-field strawberries are expected for 2026, 11.3 percent less than the year before. A website that reflects the range has to be changeable in minutes.
- Small direct marketers are exempt from the unit price requirement (German Price Indication Ordinance) - they are not exempt from the total price, from allergen information or from the legal notice.
Why the farm shop is often missing online
The number of agricultural holdings in Germany has fallen to around 255,000 (Federal Statistical Office), some three percent fewer than three years earlier. At the same time the picture of revenue sources has shifted: 137,270 (Federal Statistical Office) holdings earn income from additional farm-related activities. Those that run a farm shop sell to people from the surrounding area. And that area does its research digitally before getting into the car. Without a site of your own, the decision is made by a directory entry with outdated opening hours or by a post in a social network that is three weeks old and no longer findable. Why an address of your own carries more weight than a profile on someone else's platform is set out in your own website instead of only social media.
Are you open today
The most common question of all, and the only one whose wrong answer costs a customer on the spot. People who stand in front of a locked gate rarely come back a second time.
What is ripe right now
One sentence is enough: what is on the shelf this week, what is ending and what comes next. This line is the reason regular customers keep coming back to the site.
Where exactly is the farm
A farm track address is often imprecise in map services. A short description from the main road, a note about parking and about trailer access solve that.
You answer these three questions out loud at the farm gate every day. Online they are answered by a page you build once and maintain briefly during the season. The effort is not in the building but in the upkeep - and that is what the page has to be designed for: few places that change, clearly labelled, reachable from a phone out in the field. Which pages a small website needs as a minimum to be complete while staying lean is covered in the overview of the five most important pages of a website. A farm shop adds a fourth that exists nowhere else: the season page.
What the figures on direct marketing say
Direct marketing is no longer a niche. Where the share of holdings with additional income sources was just under half in 2020, it had reached 54 percent (Federal Statistical Office) by 2023. Among those holdings, 47 percent (Federal Statistical Office) name renewable energy generation, 27 percent (Federal Statistical Office) forestry and 26 percent (Federal Statistical Office) the direct marketing of their own produce as a further pillar. That puts direct marketing into the plan of roughly one in four holdings with additional income - and every one of them competes for the same attention in the surrounding area. Visibility goes to whoever can be found. Customer expectations fit the format well: 41 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) name openness and transparency of the holding as an important expectation of a farm, and 38 percent (BMLEH Nutrition Report 2025) name marketing the produce within its region. Both can be shown on a site of your own and hardly at all on someone else's platform.
The season has grown shorter
Regionally the picture differs. The largest open-field strawberry harvest in 2026 is expected in Lower Saxony at 18,100 tonnes (Federal Statistical Office), down 18.0 percent on the previous year. Asparagus is heading the same way: 100,300 tonnes (Federal Statistical Office) means 3.4 percent less than in 2025 and the lowest figure since 2010. For a farm shop such swings are routine, but for the website they are a requirement: it has to be able to show a changing range without anyone writing an invoice each time. A text field on the home page that you edit yourself is worth more than an elaborate product catalogue that is out of date after two weeks.
What belongs on the home page
A farm shop home page has a single job: it should answer the three questions above before anyone scrolls. Everything else - farm history, animal husbandry, pictures from the field - comes underneath and matters for trust, but it does not decide the drive that same afternoon. In practice that means a status bar at the very top, the produce of the week below it, then directions and payment methods. Because most of these visits come from a phone, the page has to work there first; what matters for that is in the guide to mobile optimisation.
Status bar with a date
"Open today, Friday, 9 am to 6 pm" beats a table. Add a line for public holidays and for the day when the harvest takes priority.
This week's produce
Three to eight items are plenty. What is in, what is running out, what is coming. Add the date so visitors can see how fresh the information is.
Directions and parking
Written directions, a note on the access road and the parking area. People arriving by bike want to know whether the track is surfaced.
Payment and honesty box
Card, cash or an honesty box at the vending point: this detail prevents the most common disappointment on arrival and belongs visibly on the page.
Pick your own and order boxes
Where both exist, each needs its own line with the time window, the pricing basis and whether containers have to be brought along.
One route for questions
A tappable phone number and a short form. Nothing more is needed - every extra mandatory field costs enquiries.
The map entry is the second job
Opening hours people can rely on
A farm shop rarely has the tidy hours of a high-street shop. Long on Friday, short on Saturday, in winter by arrangement, in harvest week whenever the field allows. A rigid table represents that poorly and goes stale quickly. A two-tier statement works better: the regular hours as a frame and an exception line above it that you can set yourself. That line is the most frequently edited element of the whole website - it has to be reachable without training.
- Regular hours per weekday, written out rather than abbreviated, so screen readers handle them cleanly
- One exception line for today and tomorrow that you can change from a phone in under a minute
- Public holiday arrangements as their own item, because that is when many people search
- The winter break with the date it ends - do not leave a break standing without an end date
- A timestamp under the information so visitors can see how current it is
- The same hours in the map entry, on the notice at the farm gate and on the site
- A phone number for the case where someone is travelling a long way and wants to be sure
Store opening hours in machine-readable form
In practice the upkeep rarely fails because of the tool but because of the route to it. Anyone who first has to sign in at a computer, click through a menu and format a text will not do it during harvest week. So we deliberately keep this place poor in options: one field, one date, one save button. Everything else stays as it is. If you would rather hand the upkeep over entirely, that runs through ongoing website maintenance - you pass the change on briefly and it is usually live the same day.
A second point is often overlooked: loading time. Someone calling up the site at the edge of a field on a weak connection will not wait eight seconds. A farm shop page needs no large image galleries in the visible area and no embedded maps that fetch data on first load. One good photo, compressed, and a block of text are enough for the first impression; everything heavy comes further down. Which levers actually count is covered in improving website loading time.
Prices and mandatory details in the farm shop
As soon as you name prices on the website, the German Price Indication Ordinance applies. Its Section 3 requires a trader who offers goods to consumers, or advertises to consumers stating prices, to state the total price (German Price Indication Ordinance). The unit price requirement, meaning the price per kilogram or litre, usually does not apply to farm shops: Section 4(3) no. 3 exempts goods offered by small direct marketers - farm shops, wineries and beekeepers are named explicitly - where the goods are handed over predominantly across a counter (German Price Indication Ordinance). That exemption falls away where the range is sourced through a distribution system. Stating the unit price voluntarily does no harm - many customers convert to the kilo anyway. How much price information makes sense on a website is discussed in showing prices on your website.
| Common on farm shop pages | Better on your own site | Why it makes the difference |
|---|---|---|
| "Opening hours: see notice at the gate" | Regular hours plus an exception line with a date | The notice hangs at the farm, the page is read beforehand - the information has to be where the decision is made |
| "Prices on request" | Total price per selling unit, dated | The Price Indication Ordinance requires the total price as soon as you advertise with prices |
| Only a photo of the farm sign | Short written directions from the main road plus parking note | Farm track addresses are often imprecise in map services, and words solve that more reliably than a coordinate |
| Ingredient lists only in the shop | Allergen information also as an electronic offering | The German Food Information Implementation Ordinance expressly permits this route |
| Legal notice as an image or a footnote | Its own page, one click away from every subpage | The German Digital Services Act requires details that are easy to recognise and directly accessible |
Allergens deserve a closer look, because there is an opportunity in them. For food that is not prepacked - loose goods, goods packed at the point of sale and counter service - the German Food Information Implementation Ordinance requires the allergenic ingredients to be stated. This information has to be provided clearly visible, distinct and easy to read (German Food Information Implementation Ordinance), and it may be done on a sign, in a price list, on a notice or through an electronic information offering provided by the food business operator. A maintained page with the ingredients of your jams, sausages and baked goods therefore meets an obligation and at the same time answers a question that otherwise costs time at the counter. On the legal notice: Section 5 of the German Digital Services Act requires the name, the address, a means of rapid electronic contact and, where held, the VAT identification number (German Digital Services Act). Which details belong in it individually is set out in the overview of legal notice requirements.
A farm shop website does not have to replace online retail. It has to make the way to the farm gate so short that nobody ends up in the supermarket just because the opening hours were unclear.
Pick your own, vending point and order box
The farm shop is rarely the only sales channel. Alongside it stand pick-your-own fields, a vending point by the road, an order box to be reserved in advance or a stall at the weekly market. Each of these routes has its own hours, its own prices and its own rules - and each needs its own clearly named line on the website. Putting everything into one paragraph produces phone calls. Turning it into four short blocks saves those calls and looks more dependable at the same time.
- Pick your own: give the field address separately from the farm, the time window, the pricing basis per kilo or per punnet, a note on containers and on cancellation in rain or once rows are picked out.
- Vending point: location, the hours it can be reached, payment methods and what is usually in it - in the evening the vending point is the one sales channel still open.
- Order box: order deadline, collection window, contents as a sample list and a note on whether the contents vary with the harvest. A simple form is enough, a shopping cart is seldom needed.
- Weekly market: market days, stall position and the weeks when the stall is not there. This detail brings in city customers who would not drive to the farm itself.
- Delivery: list it only if it happens dependably - area, day and minimum order value then belong in the same line.
A wrong detail weighs more than a missing one
In four steps to a farm shop website
A farm shop website is not a large project. It has four to six pages, a handful of good photos and one place that changes weekly. That is exactly how we build it: at a fixed price, with an agreed structure and an editing point you operate yourself. What such a project costs and what is included is on the pricing overview; the different scopes are set out in our website packages.
- Initial conversation: we clarify the range, the seasonal pattern, the sales channels, the opening hours and who will maintain the site later.
- Structure: home page with status bar, season page, farm and production, directions, contact, legal notice and privacy information - a farm shop rarely needs more.
- Content: we write the texts from your input, sort your photos and set up the allergen information as its own printable page.
- Technology: opening hours as structured data, a tappable phone number, a short enquiry form, hosting in Germany and a certificate for encrypted transmission.
- Handover: half an hour of instruction at the editing point, after which you change the status bar and the season list from your phone.
An honest assessment
Sources and Studies
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