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Post by imec on Oct 19, 2009 20:47:54 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2009 21:06:35 GMT
Food is quite expensive in France compared to North America. I very well remember the specials at the supermarkets in Florida where my parents were living -- those prices like chicken for $0.19 a pound or else pork just about the same price?
Who can possibly make a living out of such prices?
Food in France is considerably more expensive, but the producers are still getting next to nothing. Dairy farmers have been protesting for weeks because they are getting 0.20€ per liter for milk even though it costs them 0.40€ to produce it.
It is obvious that the middlemen are taking a big cut, at least if one can believe the hypermarkets and supermarkets, which are all quick to display their invoices for what they are paying and the small profit margin for which there are selling it. Often the price has risen 10 times on its way from the producer to the market.
It's true that there is an incredible amount of waste along the way. Just picking over the tomatoes with everybody else, I can see that half of them will never be sold and will go straight to the trash. It's the same for most of the other produce.
At least street markets often put the 'spoiled' goods aside and leave it accessible to the indigent. Supermarkets, on the other hand, often pour bleach on the same products to make sure nobody will raid their rubbish bins. Obviously, giving away food free of charge will not make anybody rich, but are the stores really increasing their profits by ruining edible items?
It is a really upsetting debate on all sides.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 19, 2009 23:44:51 GMT
I've known both farmers and a family in the US who owned a grocery chain that both made very large amounts of money for doing so so I think the common perception that most of the profits are extracted between the producer and retailer may be off base. Either that or the middlemen are really making a killing.
Food prices in Italy apples to apples so to speak haven't struck me as much different from the US, with groceries maybe a little higher in IT, but restaurants there actually offering probably better value than comparable American ones. France and Holland seem higher, shouldn't the prices be about the same in all EU counties as it's theoretically close to being a single market?
<edit>Actually prices in Italy for nearly everything generally get lower the further South one goes and cities are more than rural almost anywhere etc. so I guess even countries aren't single markets.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2009 2:22:40 GMT
Cheese and wine are cheaper in France (I'm comparing with Québec, and a bit Eastern Ontario, not anywhere else in N.A.).
The current pork prices are strange indeed (we've never had anything like giveaway chicken). I don't typically eat much mammalian meat, but I couldn't resist a few loin porkchops which I grilled a bit and then cooked slowly in a Thai-ish curry with coconut milk. But I fear Renzo may end up finishing them up, as I can't stomach much meat nowadays.
We never get quite the "low, low prices" imec shows in his Sobeys circular.
There is an initiative here, "Moisson Montréal" to collect the imperfect tomatoes and other good but less aesthetic produce for use in soup kitchens, "cuisines collectives" and other resources for poor people. It is silly to cover that stuff with bleach; indigent people won't buy more if they can't afford it.
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Post by hwinpp on Oct 20, 2009 6:58:14 GMT
I used to love poring over those supermarket food papers.
I just checked my favourite butchen in Hanover's website:
Belly, 2.49EUR/kg Pork chops from near the neck, 2.79EUR/kg with bone, deboned 3.79EUR/kg Pork roast, fresh or smoked, 4.29EUR/kg Beef tongues, fresh or pickled, 5.99EUR/kg Minced meat, half beef, half pork, 4.90EUR/kg Silesian smoked sausages, 4.90EUR/kg Mix of pork sausages, 12.90EUR/kg Hering salad (pickled hering mixed with apple, onions, sour cream), 7.90EUR/kg
It's more on the porky side, no beef on offer at all. Otherwise similar to Imec's prices.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2009 11:11:56 GMT
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Post by bjd on Oct 20, 2009 11:22:49 GMT
Despite what my sister tells me about high prices in Canada, I always find that food is much more expensive here in France. It's even more so in Paris, in general, than in the south or "the provinces". But Imec's posted prices are incredibly low -- especially after I convert them to euros. Not very top-grade beef here costs at least 15€/kilo, and usually much more. Quite unlike Imec's sirloin steak which comes out to less than 5€. A better piece of roast beef costs about 30€/kilo.
I buy fruit and vegetables at the outdoor market, not in the supermarket. I found prices here were rather similar to those I saw at a market in Rome, but since that was Campo de'Fiori, it might have been more expensive than elsewhere.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2009 12:18:40 GMT
bjd, I've always found meat more expensive in France, but cheese is cheaper. Vegetables and fruits vary wildly by market and neighbourhood. Don't find much difference in what I spend on groceries, but I'm not a big meat-eater.
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Post by imec on Oct 20, 2009 12:41:56 GMT
bjd - a butcher near me has several items on special each week - last week one of them was whole beef tenderloin (aka filet) for $5.99 per pound! Costco (whose meat is very reliable indeed) has a regular price of just $18.99 per kilo - it will go as low as $15.99.
lagatta - the relatively high price for Canadian cheese is partly due to legislation which guarantees a price for industrial milk. Imported cheese - that's just gouging (you French folks will be appaled to know that something like Epoisses will sell for about $6 per 100gms if you can find it).
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2009 13:05:31 GMT
Époisses is very easy to find here, but it is expensive. Perhaps not that expensive here - obviously we have a big market for French cheeses - but pricy just the same. Yes, I knew about the milk legislation. Saw a business article about it this morning, and the perverse effects on locally-made vs frozen pizzas (which can buy their cheese cheaper for some reason). Think it was in the Globe and Mail - I'll look for it later; I'm supposed to be concentrating on work - ha, so they say, eh!
We won't go into the minimum pricing on wines here...
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 20, 2009 15:59:46 GMT
This is an extremely interesting thread. I'll have to gather more prices to respond fully, but you are definitely paying less for many important items, especially meat. The supermarket closest to me (owned by Walmart, boycotted by me) has pieces of fat cut into meat shapes and very pricey. If you consider the earning power here contrasted with that in Canada, then you are paying far, far less.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2009 16:10:10 GMT
Do you mean that the actual ticket price is actually higher in Oaxaca, not only the obvious difference between earning power in Oaxaca and Manitoba?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2009 16:57:23 GMT
Once I am finally able to use my scanner again, I will get some more Parisian food flyers.
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Post by imec on Oct 20, 2009 17:09:15 GMT
I don't bother scanning anymore - just shoot with a camera.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 20, 2009 18:02:23 GMT
Do you mean that the actual ticket price is actually higher in Oaxaca, not only the obvious difference between earning power in Oaxaca and Manitoba? Yes, that's what I meant. All of the meat is cheaper. The fish is dramatically cheaper. I'd say apples are about the same. The little yogurts are cheaper. I do pay far less for limes! In the realm of earning/buying power -- I realize some of the prices shown are specials or store brands, but as an example, I buy cheap tuna & pay around 66 US cents for a can. The first circular above shows 5 cans of tuna for $4 CAD. That works out to 77 US cents. So even with the 11 cents difference, that makes Mexican tuna high. I hope Don Cuevas weighs in on this thread, as he has access to more modern supermarket outlets and has recently been back to the States. Charlie is Canadian and lives here. Maybe I can get her to report. Still, we are getting off track from the OP, which says:
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Post by imec on Oct 20, 2009 18:08:32 GMT
Don't worry about deviating from the OP - it was a bit confused and probably tried to cover too many issues.
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Post by bjd on Oct 20, 2009 18:20:21 GMT
Those flat cans of tuna cost $1.10 US in Quito, Ecuador. Of course, they are not store brands like those on special in Imec's ad. But that's really expensive in a country where the average monthly salary is about $200. I don't know how that compares with buying power in Mexico.
Generally, it looks like the wealthier the country, the cheaper the food. Not only relative to earnings, but even generally.
My sister spent 3 weeks in Florida last winter. She said prices in the States are often much lower than in Canada. I don't know if that's a question of lower wages, or lower taxes or what.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 20, 2009 18:37:31 GMT
In general Ecuador is much poorer than Mexico, but Oaxaca is a relatively poor Mexican state by what I know (bixa of course knows more). But doubt it is as poor as Ecuador, one of the poorest countries in South America. Think only Bolivia is poorer - haven't checked.
There is a huge Haitian community in Montréal (including Canada's Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean) and many of them have complained about how horribly high staple food prices are in that country, the poorest in the entire Western Hemisphere. This affects people here as most Haitians, whether they are doctors or university professors or minimum-wage workers in factories and services send considerable sums home every paycheque to their immediate or extended families.
Factors in difference between US and Canadian prices would include lower MINIMUM wages (not lower salaries overall, but food workers and farmworkers are low-earners). lower taxes (and much fewer government services, in particular healthcare) as well as climate. We simply can't grow oranges. In Florida they can grow food year-round.
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Post by bjd on Oct 20, 2009 18:44:52 GMT
Well, she wasn't simply looking at locally grown oranges. She told me of one supermarket that had specials on imported Italian foods -- buy one, get one free -- whether it was boxes of pasta, bottles of olive oil or whatever.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 21, 2009 19:20:25 GMT
After my griping yesterday about the local grocery store prices, here are prices from the market. This is the huge central market of Oaxaca, the Abastos. The photos were taken yesterday, Tuesday. Many of the vegetables one buys in corner groceries or in the floating weekly markets come from this Tuesday market. The prices here on a Tuesday are the best. Many of the items shown below could be had for even less at other stands. I bought a smoked fish for 20 pesos. It will be good for a couple of meals. The chicken dinner shown elsewhere was 30 pesos and, even sharing it with the dog, gave me two meals. I bought carrots and cabbage from this lady. I had to ask for a smaller cabbage than the one she offered me, as I couldn't bear the idea of toting it.
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Post by bjd on Oct 21, 2009 19:48:49 GMT
I just converted to US$, so those market prices seem quite low indeed. How are they for the locals compared to wages?
Is it generally cheaper to buy everything at the market? Here at my local market, fruit and vegetables are generally cheaper but things like cheese or meat or fish are generally much more expensive because they are just individuals selling from a truck, even if they might have a shop somewhere. It's often better quality as well but with less choice.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 21, 2009 20:10:37 GMT
Bjd, those prices are very good for the locals as well. People go out of their way to shop at this Tuesday market. Meat is competitively priced at these markets, as is cheese.
You can live more cheaply and better if you adjust your eating habits to what's available at the markets, although I still use the supermarkets for things like paper goods.
These weekly markets in Mexico are such an unbroken tradition from the beginning of their civilization that they have a native name rather than a Spanish one (tianguis: tee-AHN-geese). It's different from first world countries, where we're more likely to use the farmers markets to get specialty produce or better quality locally produced stuff with the expectation of paying more.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 21, 2009 22:14:55 GMT
Well, you are certainly eating a healthy diet if it is centred on those beautiful vegetables. Where do you buy tortillas? Imagine you probably have a place even closer for that staple.
Even in First World countries, whether the market is cheaper than supermarkets or not depends on where you live, even city by city - or market to market. In Amsterdam, some of the street markets are much cheaper than the supermarkets, at least for vegetables and certainly for cheese. Dappermarkt near where I stay now is the cheapest market in Amsterdam, and interesting because the neighbourhood is so cosmopolitan (Dutch food is very bland).
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 22, 2009 0:33:02 GMT
(La, I have already bored the pants off everyone on the subject of tortillas here in 1249 & 1250.)About the difference in food prices between the US and Canada .... the US certainly must pay less in produce shipping costs for foods imported from latin America. Also, I think most of the US has longer growing seasons, so some Canadian food is probably imported from the US. I don't know why goods such as olive oil would be less, unless it has something to do with trade agreements. It could even be that there is enough demand in certain areas to keep the stores more competitive.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 22, 2009 0:51:39 GMT
I pay no more for olive oil here than I do when in Italy. But I've never seen "by one, get one free" deals on it. I think that probably has more to do with differences in marketing between supermarkets and shops in different regions.
Those prices are probably "loss leaders", but it only makes sense to have such extreme loss leaders if household do very large grocery shoppings. (I scout them out and usually buy only that and perhaps other things I really need, and it is usually by bicycle so not even any gasoline consumption).
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2009 19:22:44 GMT
The hypermarkets here are often accused to selling certain fresh products at a loss, just to get people in the store. They know that once we are pushing our shopping cart through the aisles, we can't resist the other stuff.
Technically, it is against the law except during liquidation sales.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 22, 2009 21:04:36 GMT
My grandfather & uncle ran a general store -- the kind of store that's almost extinct in the US. They said that there was pretty much no profit on things like milk and bread, but that those were items a grocery was expected to have. When my grandfather was dying in 1971, one of his brothers came to help tend the store. There was no such thing as Wal-mart then, but there were chain supermarkets. That uncle explained that small grocers couldn't compete, as there was no way for them to buy container-truckloads of products at a time and get those savings.
And it's true that we bemoan the loss of that kind of small-town business. However, the world those businesses served no longer exists. My grandfather catered to country people who grew their own produce. He sold salt licks and wood burning stoves and linoleum, salt pork, and "coal oil". He sold hoop cheese and summer sausage he cut on a tree trunk with a big knife. He sold batting for quilts and yard goods. Also for sale were hog rings and seeds in bulk. I could go on, but when was the last time you needed a store like that?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2009 21:12:53 GMT
What about the legendary "pickle barrel"?
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Post by lagatta on Oct 22, 2009 22:45:25 GMT
We don't have that any more (such that exist, such as the lovely historic Épicerie Moisan in Québec City, have become speciality grocers) but there are quite a few smaller grocers that seem to be chugging along, serving specific clienteles or neighbourhoods. The Argentine butcher's around the corner - which is just as much a grocery with an array of mostly Latin American (from many countries) and Italian grocery products - has put in new counters. The store belongs to the proverbial hard-wrokng family, has most competitive prices, and seems to be prospering. So-called "Québécois de souche" nearby shop there as much as Italians and various Latino-Americans, whether from the Cono Sur countries or elsewhere.
I suspect there are fewer local grocery shops, except specifically ethnic ones, in most US cities.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 22, 2009 23:57:43 GMT
Kerouac, everything I listed was sold there in my memory. Pickle barrels had been outlawed by the time I came along, I guess, but my grandfather used to tell a story about his dad and a pickle barrel. It's not suitable for a thread where foodstuffs are being discussed.
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