Penetration Testing Cost for UK Food and Agriculture Businesses (2026)

A penetration test for a UK food or agriculture business typically costs £2,200 to £35,000 in the UK market. The low end is a short test of the internet-facing perimeter. The high end covers a supplier portal, retailer integrations, the perimeter and the internal network. The price is the number of testing days multiplied by a day rate of £1,100 to £1,400.

What does a penetration test cost for a food or agriculture business?

Most food and agriculture businesses fall into one of four scopes, typically costing between £2,200 and £35,000 in the UK market. What you pay depends on how many systems are tested and how complex each one is, because that sets the number of testing days. The table shows the typical range for each scope.

Scope	What is tested	Days	Typical UK cost
Perimeter only	Internet-facing services, remote access, and the public addresses behind a farm office or packing site	2 to 3 days	£2,200 to £4,200
One supplier or grower portal	A portal with a single user role, including tenant separation between suppliers	5 days	£5,500 to £7,000
Supplier portal plus retailer integration	The portal above, plus the API or EDI feed that connects it to a retailer’s ordering platform	9 to 10 days	£9,900 to £14,000
Multi-system food business	A multi-role traceability platform, the retailer API, the perimeter, and the corporate and packing-site network	16 to 25 days	£17,600 to £35,000

These are market ranges, worked out from typical engagement lengths and UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400. They are a guide for budgeting. The pricing page shows the engagement lengths for each type of test, and the quote form gives an exact fixed price for your scope.

What drives the price?

The number of testing days drives the price, and the scope drives the number of days. Five things move the day count for a food or agriculture business: how many systems are in scope, how many user roles each platform has, how many endpoints the retailer integration exposes, how large the network is, and how carefully testing has to be planned around production.

• Number of systems. A supplier portal, a traceability platform and a cold-chain dashboard are three separate tests, even when one team runs all three.
• User roles. A portal with supplier, buyer and auditor roles takes longer than a single-role tool, because each boundary between roles has to be tested. Tenant separation, so that one supplier cannot see another’s pricing or volumes, is the part buyers care about most.
• Retailer integrations. An API or EDI feed adds time when it is tested in its own right. A small API is typically 4 to 5 days and a larger one more. See API penetration testing.
• Network size. The number of internet-facing addresses, sites and Active Directory domains sets the length of the infrastructure work.
• Timing around operations. Harvest, production runs and peak trading weeks may restrict when testing can happen. That is planned during scoping and does not change the day count by itself.

Tester grade is not a pricing factor, and neither is the size of the testing company. Two quotes for the same scope should differ mainly in the number of days. If one quote is much lower, compare the day counts first.

What is included, and what costs extra?

A quote should cover scoping, testing, the report, a walkthrough of the findings and a retest. Ask every company you approach to confirm each of those in writing, because retests and out of hours work are the two items that most often appear later as extra charges.

With EJN Labs, the quote is a fixed price for a defined scope. It includes:

• Testing by UK-based, CREST-certified testers.
• Findings in a client portal as they are confirmed, each with a CVSS score.
• The report on the last day of testing, and a walkthrough call.
• Free retests until findings are resolved.
• Out of hours slots, with no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees.

What changes the price is a change of scope: a system added after the quote, extra user roles, or a larger network than the one described. If the scope grows, you get a new fixed price before any extra work starts.

How do you get a quote, and what will you be asked?

Send the list of systems you want tested and say which customer has asked for the evidence. A testing company needs a few facts about each system to count the days. Having them ready is the fastest way to get a firm price, and it makes quotes from different companies comparable.

1. Which systems are in scope: supplier portals, traceability platforms, APIs, the perimeter, internal networks.
2. For each portal, the number of user roles and whether it is shared between competing suppliers.
3. For the retailer integration, whether it is an API or an EDI feed and roughly how many endpoints it has.
4. For the perimeter, roughly how many internet-facing addresses and remote-access services you have.
5. Whether there is a test environment, or whether testing has to run against production.
6. The exact wording of the customer’s request, and any dates to avoid, such as harvest, production peaks or a retailer promotion.

Food and agriculture organisations can use a CREST-accredited company or a CHECK provider, depending on what their requirement states. EJN Labs is CREST-accredited. If the customer’s document names an accreditation, say so when you ask for the quote.

Does a supermarket audit decide what you pay?

Indirectly. No public rule makes a supplier audit require a test, so the customer’s own wording decides what you buy. If it asks for Cyber Essentials Plus, that is an assessor-led audit, not a penetration test. UK GDPR Article 32(1)(d) asks for regular testing without naming the method.

How EJN Labs approaches pricing for food and agriculture businesses

EJN Labs is a CREST-accredited UK penetration testing company with a dedicated food and agriculture service. We scope each system by what it does and who uses it, count the days, and give you one fixed price for the defined scope.

We test farm data platforms, traceability and provenance systems, supplier and grower portals, cold-chain telemetry, retailer and EDI integrations, and the corporate and site networks around them. Farm data platforms, cold-chain telemetry and connected equipment are tested from the cloud side, never directly on live farm machinery, milking robots or irrigation controllers. Work that reaches towards field or plant equipment only goes ahead against an agreed safe test plan with defined change windows.

Testing is safe by default on production, with no denial of service. Retests are free until findings are resolved, so the price you agree covers the evidence that issues were fixed as well as the evidence that they were found.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a penetration test cost for a food business?

Typically £2,200 to £35,000 in the UK market. A perimeter-only test of 2 to 3 days is £2,200 to £4,200. One supplier portal at 5 days is £5,500 to £7,000. A multi-system test of 16 to 25 days is £17,600 to £35,000. These ranges use UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400.

Why does a retailer integration add to the price?

Because an API or EDI feed is tested in its own right, and that takes extra days. A small API typically adds 4 to 5 days. A supplier portal plus its retailer integration is typically 9 to 10 days, so £9,900 to £14,000 in the UK market.

Is a retest included in the price?

It depends on the company, so ask for it in writing. With EJN Labs, retests are free until findings are resolved, and there are no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees. The quote is a fixed price for a defined scope.

How long does a penetration test take for a food business?

Between 2 and 25 testing days for the scopes in the table above. A perimeter test is typically 2 to 3 days, one supplier portal is 5 days, and a multi-system test is 16 to 25 days. EJN Labs delivers the report on the last day of testing.

Can testing be scheduled around harvest or peak trading?

Yes. Tell the testing company about harvest, production runs and promotions when you ask for the quote. EJN Labs offers out of hours slots at no extra charge, and any work that reaches towards field or plant equipment is tied to change windows agreed in advance.

Get a fixed price for your food or agriculture business

Tell us which systems are in scope and which customer has asked for the evidence. Request a fixed-price quote and we will come back with the number of days, the price and the earliest start date.

Related: Supermarket Supplier Audits: Do Food Businesses Need a Penetration Test?, Best Penetration Testing Companies for UK Food and Agriculture, penetration testing for UK food and agriculture, penetration testing cost in the UK, web application penetration testing cost and network penetration testing cost.