

Voyager’s “variable geometry pylons” were designed to allow greater than warp 5 travel without the damage to subspace. It’s also entirely possible that Starfleet adapted the borg technology from the Delta Flyer to increase the travel speed of shuttles. The warp scale is logarithmic so even a fraction of a point increase can shave significant portions of time off a trip.
I live out in the country with a lot of farms and yeah people do this. I’ve seen apples, peaches, firewood, and a few other “shelf stable” things.