Frozen and dried fruit are rarely genuine alternatives, and when a buyer treats them as interchangeable the comparison usually goes wrong in the same three places.
Start with the yield factor, not the unit
Dried fruit has had most of its water removed, so a kilogram of dried fruit represents several kilograms of fresh intake. Frozen fruit retains its water. Comparing the two per kilogram of purchased product is meaningless; compare per kilogram of fruit solids delivered into the finished recipe, or per unit of finished product. Ask the supplier for the fresh-to-finished yield factor for each line and do the arithmetic on that basis.
Then compare the total handling cost
The unit that leaves the factory is only part of the cost. Frozen fruit carries a temperature-controlled chain from the freezer to the buyer’s intake: reefer transport, frozen storage, and a real risk cost attached to every temperature excursion. Dried fruit ships ambient, stores ambient and tolerates a wider handling envelope, but it carries its own risks in water activity drift, insect infestation and, in some species, sulphur declaration obligations.
Weight matters too. Because dried fruit has shed its water, a container carries far more fruit solids, which changes the freight cost per unit of solids dramatically over long distances and hardly at all over a short road haul.
Finally, ask what the fruit has to do
This is usually the decisive question. Frozen fruit rehydrates instantly and behaves like fruit: it bleeds juice, it softens, it contributes colour and acidity. Dried fruit is a texture and sweetness carrier that will draw moisture out of a matrix unless it is conditioned first. A bakery inclusion, a snack mix and a cereal bar want dried fruit. A dairy fruit preparation, a juice base and a filling want frozen or puree.
Where both genuinely work, the decision usually comes down to storage infrastructure. A buyer without frozen capacity is choosing dried whatever the arithmetic says. The IQF versus block frozen guide covers the parallel decision inside the frozen category.