Kilogram price on a fruit powder is close to uninformative, because the bag may be mostly carrier.
Spray drying a fruit concentrate requires a carrier in almost every case. Fruit sugars have low glass transition temperatures and would stick to the dryer wall rather than form a powder, so maltodextrin, gum arabic, modified starch or a fibre carrier is added. The carrier fraction can be substantial and it varies widely between producers and between products.
The comparison that works has three steps. Ask for the carrier type. Ask for the carrier percentage. Ask for the fruit solids content. Then divide the quoted price by the fruit solids fraction to get cost per kilogram of fruit delivered. Two suppliers quoting within a few per cent of each other on kilogram price can differ by a factor of two or three on that basis.
A supplier who will not state carrier percentage has answered the question.
Two further points. Carrier is a labelling matter, not only a costing one: under Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 the ingredient list of the finished product has to reflect what is present, and a maltodextrin carrier is an ingredient rather than a processing aid. A clean-label proposition cannot be built on a heavily carried powder.
And the drying route changes the comparison entirely. Freeze-dried powder carries no carrier and costs several times more per kilogram, but the fruit solids basis narrows the gap considerably – and it is the only route that preserves heat-labile actives, which may be the entire reason the powder is in the formulation.