Seed price inflation!

Are the prices of seeds rocketing this year? 
Just been looking at Mr F's seeds and there seem to be quite a few seed packets that are more than £4 for a handful of seeds. For example Cucumber Socrates F1 5 seeds = £4.59. 

At what point do you decide that the individual seed cost is too much, bearing in mind the risk that it may not grow, may die before maturity or costs more than you could buy the veg for in a shop? Taking the cucumber as an example - each seed costs about 92p. How much is a cucumber in the shop? OK, you may be lucky and each plant will produce far more than 1 cucumber but there are no guarantees. 

Do you have an upper limit to what you would pay for a packet? I seem to have a cut off point of £2 unless there are lots of seeds in the packet, like Franchi seeds.

I very rarely buy seeds anymore. Because of seed saving & our seed swap and winning the occasional fb competition with seed prizes. If I buy seeds it’s usually in sales. Do I put a price limit for seeds, on myself! Yeah I do…………
But they is always that one packet of seed you just must have! I still have a limited to how much I’d spend. Only once have I ever spent £5 on a single variety packet of seeds. Well yes obviously it was chillies   . It’s becoming increasingly rare thankfully to find a must have packet of seeds. 
Don’t get me wrong, I want all of them. But the world will not end if I don’t buy them   .

Yes, I save my own seed too. And am always thrilled and excited by what comes in the seed swap.
However - I confess to falling for the “special offer 99p seeds” that regularly pop up in my inbox.
My experience is that these “bargains” are often old seeds that have very poor germination.
A recent example is sweet pea seed from Mr F reduced from £3.99 to 99p.
About three seeds have sprouted - the rest have gone furry and rotted, which makes them 33p per seed! So - Not the bargain I expected.

I'm a sucker for free p&p and the 99p seeds, either those or Premier Seeds. I haven't imposed a price per pkt limit on myself but often look up a variety only to boggle at the price. Like FEW I love the seed swap but fear this year I'll have nothing to offer that hasn't been done to death by me already, i.e. yellow french marigolds.

As long as I stay clear of F1 seed (which I don't want anyway) I can usually benefit from the below 99p range? An odd time, and especially for legiumes I will sometimes go to £2.50 a packet.

I'm a sucker for free p&p and the 99p seeds, either those or Premier Seeds. I haven't imposed a price per pkt limit on myself but often look up a variety only to boggle at the price. Like FEW I love the seed swap but fear this year I'll have nothing to offer that hasn't been done to death by me already,  i.e. yellow french marigolds.

I’m with you JJB. Always seem to grow the same good reliable things, so don’t often have anything “different” for the seed swap.

If they're good, reliable seeds that's more than can be said for some of the retailers stock - and they're fresh. I'm fancying growing lots of French marigolds next year amongst the veg to see if it keeps the white and black flies away.

I got a packet of Socrates from DT Brown for £1 last year in one of their sales. I rarely buy any seed full price except from Premier Seeds or other cheaper seed shops. Tomato and cucumber seeds are often very overpriced. Tomatoes is where I am more likely to spend money since I am interested in rare or new blight resistant varieties, which aren't always easy to find cheap. This year I sold over 100 tomato plants so made back any money I spent on seeds. Never would I spend £4.59 on 5 seeds though!

Could be something to do with the Private Equity backed £100 million+ buyout of Mr Fothergill’s Seeds last year?

To be fair to Mr F, I only mentioned that company because I had their catalogue in front of me. Until the end of the year (I think) all their seeds (except 99p ones) are half price and P&P is free. (Code F242). However, 5 cucumber seeds at half price (£2.30) is still more than I'm prepared to pay!