Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown
wsj.com
wsj.com
Now, of course there is a growing ugly fruit and vegetable movement[1]. It's becoming more mainstream and even Whole Foods is buying in[2]. There is an effort in Boston to provide good affordable ugly fruit and vegetables to underserved communities.
[1]http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/love_ugly_fruits...
[2]http://www.eater.com/2016/3/8/11178270/whole-foods-ugly-prod...
On top of that, the wholesalers know that these buyers will never pay a premium price, so they may get better deals on 1st tier items than mainstream supermarkets when the wholesaler really wants to sell.
The financial crisis, explained with strawberries.
There are lots and lots of strawberries of various different ages in a big pile. Some will be fine for the week and others are hours away from exploding in furry mould.
Someone splits them into the newest and oldest strawberries, and attaches a higher price to the former.
Someone then buys the older ones, and splits them again into the freshest and oldest. And so on, and so on until each group of strawberries is a set of near identical ages.
Finally, a customer comes along looking for strawberries to supply Wimbledon. It's in two days!
They find the basket of the very cheapest strawberries, and when asked how long they'll last they're told "Well, some will go off, but it's not like they'll all go off at the same time! As long as you buy them assuming maybe 5% will have gone off you'll be fine". One day later and 70% of them go mouldy and the rich folks at Wimbledon are shocked at the sudden shortage of strawberries.
Having worked produce in both regular chain markets, and in "gourmet natural foods" markets, I can assure you that this is a common practice.
What's the alternative? Should they be throwing away the entire container?
Pro tip for delicate berries: when you get them home, remove them from the package they came in and store them in a broad container lined with paper towels, something big enough so they can be spread out with a minimum of stacking. They'll last much longer that way.
If you buy a supposedly "mould-free" bundle that was repackaged from a mouldy bundle, the entire batch is likely to rot within a day or two of purchase.
The mould is already there, just not visible, on all strawberries, waiting for some sugar and water...
Example: https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/frozen-strawberrie...
PS: Side note, either USDA AMS hasn't updated their site in awhile, or some "most recent" frozen berry standards date back to the 50s/60s. Which, I guess makes sense; I imagine the process hasn't changed that much.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/...
>"I encounter a lot of people who tell me that they never knew the word 'gypped' had anything to do with gypsies, or that it's offensive — especially when the word is heard not read," says University of Texas at Austin professor Ian Hancock, who was born in Britain to Romani parents. "My response to them is, That's okay. You didn't know but now you do. So stop using it. It may mean nothing to you, but when we hear it, it still hurts."
I don't really see how "jipped" doesn't end up pronounced as "gypped" - so the connotation remains. FWIW the Moby Thesaurus lists a long litany of synonyms along the lines of "con man" and "cheat" for the term "gypper".
Words do lose their negative connotations, especially with different spelling.
I'm reminded of a quote about what if the German army named their machines of war after the people they tried to exterminate, like the Apache helicopter etc.
I'm not saying we should "prohibit" words, I'm just saying I don't quite see how one could make much of a case for "gypping" being a word that isn't steeped in history of abuse of and discrimination against the Roma people. As recent as the 70s and 80s (and even to this day) for most of Europe. Eg, to quote song "Magnificent Seven" by the Clash: "What Do We Have For Entertainment? / Cops Kickin' Gypsies On The Pavement". (I never interpreted the song any other way than as a critique of systematic abuse by the police, and callousness of mass media - not as a slur by the Clash against "gypsies").
Just because "nigger" is derived from "negro" and means "black" doesn't automatically mean we can choose to pretend black people hasn't been and still are victim of racism, and decide that "nigger is now ok to use".
It's certainly true that many portrayals of black people in continental Europe often look very odd or offensive to American eyes.
As for Roma in the USA, it appears that their invisibility is more the result of an almost complete eradication of their culture, more than anything else: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/22/american-gy...
There's plenty of racism in Europe - that doesn't mean it's ok or should be accepted.
But I'm not sure any of these apply to the practice under consideration, which is selling substandard produce to people who haven't properly calibrated their expectations.
edit: I also used to say "jewed down" as a kid. There's stuff that's better just to get rid of.
edit 2: I've actually had people passionately explain to me why saying "nigger-rigged" was not a problem.
Obviously the nutritional value is the same, so the place makes for a great source for smoothie ingredients and frozen fruits to be consumed at a later date.
At a Whole Foods, you can reasonably be assured of asparagus in the winter time. In Chinatown, things are only available when they're in season, like a farmers' market.
Also, if you've ever ordered at a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese family, you'll see this phenomenon. Instead of ordering what you want, you'll consult with the waiter to see "what's good today".
For instance, the spinach might be not up to par, so he'll substitute some nice fresh bok choy. I've not seen that in a western restaurant.
I don't think that's a cultural thing, and certainly not an ethnic thing. I think it might have something to do with how many generations-removed one is from agrarian life (or close physical/logistical proximity to it)... Growing up in my (very white) hometown in New England, which still had plenty of farms at the time, it was well understood that the good produce was seasonal and not available in chain supermarkets.
For example: China is still a developing country with a generally low per capita income. You're intimately familiar with the seasons, and what's available when, and what it takes to get your food.
Few can afford to shop at Western style supermarkets regularly, so you have a better idea (and know) the people growing and selling your food. "Oh, that's the place that always has the good cabbage". That sort of thing.
Compare that to the states, where even produce comes shrink wrapped and you have no idea how it got in the store, you just know you need to pay money to bring it home. How many trucks/resellers/packagers has this produce gone through before I take it home?
Wet markets are no better...often there is no place to get good cabbage, at least nowhere near my house, and we have to use something else that we could find in decent condition.
Luckily, the production country and region has always to be marked, so people can make an informed choice.
Which is I think what the above was referring to when they said it's cultural and not ethnic; it has to do with cultural factors that cross ethnic lines.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%94%CE%B8%CE%BD%CE%BF%C...
There are rural New England cultural practices which transcend ethnic groupings (Italian, Irish, etc).
Also, the middle/lower range asian restaurants can't afford to print menus each day.
So for instance, if the shrimp don't look good that day, they'll gladly throw in the littleneck clams that just came in. Same with green leafy vegetables, where they're pretty much interchangeable.
"We have ong choy instead of a choy. Deal with it."
Whereas in a lot of western cuisines, if you need endive in a dish, it has to be endive. Especially in higher end restaurants. They care so much about the flavor that substitutions are not possible.
Maybe this green is slightly more bitter than this other green, and it throws off the whole flavor of the dish. Whereas, in a lower/middle end asian restaurant, nobody really cares.
They will eventually though.
As someone said above, they're not far away enough from the farms yet.
Pretty much most restaurants regardless of being high end or not, have fish of the day, soup of the day, dish of the day etc. that's just a normal reaction to the supply of the market during that day as it's often considerably cheaper to secure the daily catch or w/e your veggie guy has that morning than securing seasonal items daily.
I'm curious why did you compare to Whole Foods? They are far more expensive than a regular grocery store and their food is not better.
I'm not actually sure how much more expensive Whole Foods is compared to a place like Safeway.
When it comes to produce or meat, I have never seen anything at Whole Foods that would be more expensive at a low end grocery.
There can be many effects in play like marketing, staffing, and real estate prices. The Vons I mentioned is actually getting more expensive while the Pavilions is getting cheaper because the Vons cut back on cashiers. The longer lines have caused many of my friends and I to start shopping at Pavilions, which is causing a death spiral as Vons tries to charge more for produce just so they can pay the overhead on the building (the Vons location costs twice as much in rent as the Pavilions because of lease terms and the outdoor mall it's in, despite being across the street).
My only two points of reference are Denver, CO and Kansas City, MO.
In Kansas City, Whole Foods produce and dairy prices were anywhere from 100-200% more than their Price Chopper / Hen House / Hy-Vee equivalents. Meat was marked up around 150% from their commodity supermarket price with a marked increase in quality and variety.
Denver has a roughly 30% higher cost of living than KC, and here the Whole Foods / Sprouts produce and dairy goods prices are competitive to slightly-higher than the King Soopers (local Kroger subsidiary) / Safeway prices. Meat is marked up around 100% from the commodity supermarket price, but with the same distinction in quality and variety.
This is all anecdotal and subject to my terrible aggregated memories of shopping trips, but this subject is fascinating to ponder.
My sister is a Whole Foods acolyte. She spends like $6 a gallon for shirt dated, ultra pasteurized milk because While Foods. Same product made in the same dairy at the local store for normals is like $2.79/g.
I used to like whole foods for the cheese and hot bar. But as they made the prepared food shittier and local groceries upped the cheese game, it's just a ripoff.
Whole Food is just an example of a national food chain most people are familiar with.
For example, outside of the west coast, nobody knows what an Albertson's is. And outside of the midwest, nobody knows what a HyVee is.
Was trying to provide a common point of reference.
Whole Foods exists in the UK and Canada. Trader Joe's does not.
Cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, pears, apples, tomatoes, and countless of other produce taste much better than anything I can get at a normal grocery. Hell, I have very fond memories of eating fresh food from my grandparents dacha or picking wild berries in the forest behind my school and the high end grocers are the only place where they taste even remotely as good as what I had in Russia. Russia.
You get what you are willing to pay for, especially when it costs two to three times the lower end.
In PDX, I'd rank the produce quality as:
1) farmers market (unlike many cities, in Portland the vendors are the farmers) 2) Zupans - on the spendy side but quite good 3) Whole Foods 4) Fred Meyers 5) New Seasons - small local chain, but lousy buyers 6) Safeway
At one time the farmers markets in PDX were superb, great produce at modest prices. Over the years they've become "fancy", kind of resembling Saturday Market, and prices are high. There are bargains to be found, though it takes some effort.
Asian markets, like out on 82nd, offer some interesting (and to us non-Asians, rather exotic) options. Unlike the Chinese vendors described in the article, produce is generally in good shape and prices reasonable. Also they're good places to buy cooking hardware, like an authentic cast-iron wok, for way less than what they charge at upscale kitchen stores.
No argument about Zupans for fresh fish, better than other grocers in PDX. They usually have good produce, but it is expensive and often available elsewhere for less.
Whole foods is OK, but I don't find it's particularly superior. New Seasons can be good, if selections somewhat quirky.
Freddy's is probably best for staples, partly because they're a Kroger's subsidiary which is a huge national chain. Hardly ever go to Safeway as nothing special there and further away.
I'd add that local, seasonal produce isn't hard to find in PDX, many grocers do feature regionally sourced fruits and vegetables, along with the "factory made" stuff. There's always the option of "U-Pick" on Sauvie's Island, an adventure in itself.
(This is for general chain grocery stores; independent and ethnic stores don't necessarily follow the danger pattern.)
All good chefs/restaurants do this. IMNHO fixed menu a la carte restaurants are rarely very good - but for some reason they seem to be common. Perhaps what's more interesting is how common it is to not do this in many restaurants. It usually just means that the kitchen doesn't care about the ingredients, or about the meals they prepare for that matter (eg: the line chefs/people actually working the kitchen day-to-day might have little freedom to influence the menu).
It helps if you speak the language. I'm not saying you don't speak the language, just for those following along at home.
You have to have some rough idea of what you want. If you want stir fried vegetables, you'll say something like "I want stir fried vegetables. What's good today?" Or "I want a seafood noodle soup. How do the mussels look? Any suggestions?"
Time location is important. Instead of just saying "What's good?" ask "I like rice plates. Anything good come in today?"
Finally, it's not always like this. I know I've squashed down at some street vendors and ordered a bowl of noodles without this conversation. This doesn't happen at every meal.
</soapbox>
Asian restaurants in Asia tend to specialize. You want curry, go to the curry place, if you want noodles, go to the noodle place.
Asian restaurants in the states (Thai and Chinese especially) have huge menus with no clear recommendations in the name. For instance, what are you getting when you go to Morton's steak house?
The name gives you the cue. Just like if you're heading into a restaurant called "Shanghai Dumpling House" you're probably getting dumplings.
"Golden Dragon" or "Wok Shop" gives you no information to work with, so you have to extract what is good from the waiter instead of the menu.
Be careful with this. At least in the US, the English name often has very little to do with the Chinese name, and it's the latter which is meaningful. As an example there's a place in Boston's Chinatown called the "Dumpling House" (or something along those lines) but the Chinese name is something like "tastes of north and south". Go figure, you see a lot of Westerners complaining about the dumplings here.
They seem to be known for their shanghai soup dumplings. This is a great book if you like eating out. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GSYYQ2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
Basically, if you show up at an ethnic place and order what the other ethnic people are getting, it's hard to go wrong.
That's why it's maybe more of a thing in the states where you interrogate the waiter. In Asia, each restaurant does one thing, because the competition is so intense.
In the states, you expect to get broccoli beef in every Chinese restaurant, so they sort of have to offer it. Once you talk to the waiter, everything will be made clear.
10895 S. Blaney Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014
About the only other seasonal vegetable is kale, which Northern Germans will once a year cook to death and serve with disgustingly fat sausages whose name derives from an old word for "penis". You can't make this up. :)
Especially strawberries – during early summer, on every street corner there’s someone selling strawberries from a small camping trailer painted red with green roof.
1) More than anything else - high volumes, low margins, and intense competition. People travel to Chinatown from all over NYC to buy at those prices. When they do, they're often making a long trip (in many cases, over an hour), and so they buy in much higher quantities than they would at a local grocer or supermarket. Conversely, people who just get their groceries at a local shop aren't fools, they're saving considerable time by not having to go to Chinatown.
2) Low labor costs. Most retailers are, small-scale immigrant businesses. In many cases, it would be a family operation, where children feel obligated to help their parents, or the workers are immigrants that speak little or no English (beyond that required for selling produce), are possibly undocumented, possibly are paid cash-in-hand without being taxed, and for one reason or don't have many employment opportunities outside of Chinatown. Compared with an outfit like D'Agostino, Gristedes (both of which use unionized staff), or Whole Foods, they're going to be paying a lot less for their staff in Chinatown.
Where I am, for example, the base price at Safeway/Vons/Pavilions for any of the cheaper produce items is $1.99/pound. It goes up from $1.99: $2.99, $3.99, etc. Nothing has a base price of $x.49/pound. This pricing scheme has little to do with costs!
(Bananas are the only exception for $x.99---depending on the location, they can be $0.69 or $0.79/pound---and there are a few items below the general $1.99 base price: like carrots or jicama, available for $0.99/pound.)
Furthermore, they do mark items down at a times. So a fruit that is normally $1.99/pound will drop to $0.99/pound for 3-7 days. This is partly because of seasonality, but mostly for marketing. It is only one item at a time, for example. Under no circumstances will they mark multiple items down to $0.99/pound simultaneously, even if the items are both in season (which is easy to judge by looking at produce markets, farmers' markets, and more sensible grocery stores). It can be frustrating to know that it is high season for peaches, but the powers-that-be have determined that this week they're marking grapes down from $3.99 to $1.99/pound, so peaches can't be discounted.
I'm sure the vendors in Chinatown want the prices to be high too. It's just that, unlike Safeway/Vons/Pavilions, they have dozens of competitors within walking distance.
I’d be interested.
If I lived in a region with a generous social safety net and high immigration I'd be a bit worried.
[Edit] also, farm conditions, and supplier audit trail probably do not stack up well in realtive terms vs. mainstream grocery store
While there might be something unique about the Chinese markets, I think in general stuff marketed to white people is just overpriced. Just look at how the cost of food at Smorgasburg compares with the cost of prepared food in Flushing, or at the price of housing between those two locations for that matter.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-markets-prices/food-pric...
Price Spreads from Farm to Consumer: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/price-spreads-from-far...
They also have good data on regional differences, in case you were wondering why the author was excited about $0.50/lb bananas and $1 pomegranates.
In general, people have no idea that the retail price is 4-10 times the price for the underlying farm price. While shipping and processing take up some of the price, the limited data that I could find is that distributors are the ones taking all the profit. If you cut out a few distributors you can easily cut the price of certain goods in half. I'm guessing this is what most of these ethnic supermarkets are doing.
I'm really hoping that with the age of the internet farmers' groups will form groups that sell more or less directly to the customer and see some profit for themselves (which they can ultimately use to improve production practices).
For an example of how badly farmers are getting squeezed: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/price-spreads-from-far...
You can see that the retail price has nearly doubled while the production price has only gone up by 30% since 1999. Some random inflation calculators on the internet tell me that since 1999 inflation has gone up 44% so the real price going to the farmers has dropped considerably.
Of all the economic issues I'm worried about, this ranks at the very top.
> Chinatown’s green grocers, in contrast, buy their stock from a handful of small wholesalers operating from tiny warehouses right in the neighborhood
Chipotle tried hyper-localised procurement and processing. That backfired, since heterogeneity in sourcing and processing means heterogeneity in quality control. How do these markets avoid food poisoning their customers? Are the meat makers, distributors and retailers wholly separate? Do farmers of Asian vegetables avoid fertilising with manure?
By not being a juicy target for a lawsuit. These are mom and pop shops that would just disappear into the ether if there was a big foodborne illness outbreak linked to their wares. They're also not selling prepared food--if you serve unsafe food that is because you did not prepare it correctly.
Well a lot of fruit & veg is consumed raw so "prepare it correctly" is of limited use.
And if you mean prepared Chinese food - have you seen the burners under the woks - they look, sound and consume fuel at comparable rate to a jet engine. It is very intense style of cooking using high heat for small amounts of time. The surfaces (where all the nasty stuff is) on everything that has went trough it are thoroughly sterilized.
Stuff like pickling, acids in the dressing also make the non heat treated stuff safe.
It is hard for people with normal immune system to get hurt by modern food.
That's naive.
Enjoy your chicken sashimi.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/27/national/health-...
Ma's house was famous for its food. Paladin lived in San Francisco and enjoyed the city's finest, and he was surprised and delighted with what Ma Warren prepared in this remote area. She was obviously a talented cook, but Paladin wondered how she got such a variety of quality ingredients. She explained.
Ma knew all the local farmers and ranchers, and they would bring her their best produce and meats to serve in her boarding house. In return, she cooked for them too!
Ma didn't have a reputation for poisoning her customers.
I wonder if Chipotle's problems had to do with being a big nationwide chain trying to be hyper-local, instead of just being someone who knew her neighbors and what they grew?
If you buy veggies, it's on you to wash them.
If you buy prepared food that includes veggies, it's on the vendor to wash them.
Teeth are different - they spend 24/7 in a great environment for bacterial growth (warm, wet, and with frequent bursts of sugar/nutrients).
I recommend reading the CDC's studies of outbreaks which point out that in many instances the source is cross contamination of bacteria that can't be washed off due to specific molecules that adhere to the surface of produce. The CDC deals with crises and it's in a better position to study food borne illness than the FDA, which provides general advice with nearly a century of history tracing back to the progressive movement in the US. That advice is not necessarily up to date since our treatment of food has evolved to included irradiation, waxing, safety codes, etc. which get the vast majority of microbes to begin with.
> Fruit and vegetable washes claim to kill more bacteria, but studies from the University of Maine have shown that tap water does as good a job or better. When produce is rinsed thoroughly, water can remove 98 percent of bacteria.
Looked at another way, the fact that a Chinatown vendor's source would add heterogeneity to a national chain's supply chain doesn't mean the Chinatown guy uses heterogeneous sourcing. He is as localized as his source is.
Wrong again! Chinatown’s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the network supplying most mainstream supermarkets."
So what's stopping the mainstream supermarkets from doing the same thing, undercutting their competition while simultaneously increasing their profit margins? Somehow, this sounds too good to be true.
These farmer market-style operations are much more fluid and flexible.
They reference slavery and human trafficking, and say they investigate reports of it but don't audit their suppliers.
I don't have specifics but I think you could buy apples for 80 cents a pound, and everything else is just unbelievably cheap.
I'd buy a shopping cart full of vegetables and fruits for $30 which at Gelson's would easily cost 3-4 times as much.
El Super, Superior, Superking, etc also source their products differently and there can be huge variation between stores depending on the neighborhood socioeconomics.l
Normal customers don't want it that badly. So supermarkets can't rely on being able to continually turn a profit on such a risky endeavor.
A service doesn't just have to be ten times better than the alternatives to drive mainstream adoption. It also has to be something people want bad enough to pay to create an entire industry around delivering it.
Most normal supermarkets act like a cartel instead.
The retail price for unprocessed vegetables is somewhere around 4 or 5 times the price paid to the farmer. The big exception is milk where in most countries there are laws on the retail price. Milk is about twice the farm price. This gives you an understanding of how much the distributors are shaving off.
If you are running a small shop and you have connections to non-traditional distributors, you can probably cut the price in half. Which is what the article is claiming. But they will never be able to scale it because they just don't have access to most of the food.
you need to provide carrots/bananas/apples whole year while each is exactly the same as the other.
I browsed a Whole Foods last weekend and nearly everything had some form of label wrapped around the stem, was stored in a plastic mesh sack, etc.
Whole Foods promotes environmental awareness as part of its package, but a full shop there would create a significant amount of waste / recycling compared to shopping at a local farm with a basket.
I believe it comes down to centralisation. Major supermarkets only deal with large wholesalers than can deliver produce reliably to a large number of shops.
A small shop on the other hand is happy to buy a single crate of whatever salad just happens to be available cheaply.
> Because the wholesalers are in Chinatown, they can deliver fresh produce several times a day, eliminating the need for retailers to maintain storage space or refrigeration
Somebody has to store the inventory someplace, incurring those storage costs, whether it's the retailer, wholesaler, or someone further upstream. And regardless of who stores it, I'd expect those costs to have the same effect on the consumer's price.
Unless the farmers literally harvest multiple times per day, wash/clean/prep the merchandise, and deliver it to the wholesaler. That seems unlikely.
Also, what about the lost economy of scale of selling and delivering to a bunch of small wholesalers, and in a physically hard-to-access location (Chinatown in Manhattan)?
Not only are they cheaper but they have more variety. If you go to an American grocery store...the fresh fruits and vegetable and meat selection is utterly pathetic. The price can be double. And people wonder why Americans don't eat enough fruits and vegetables
In Atlanta there are major streets like Buford highway, Pleasant Hill that have several large grocery stores (size of Walmart) within a few blocks of each other ,and no western grocery stores nearby because they can't compete. You may find an Aldi, or Walmart...but not Publix or Kroger. The sale prices at American grocery stores don't even touch the regular daily prices of the ethnic markets.
You walk into an American grocery store and you have a whole aisle dedicated to cereal, a whole aisle for potato chips, a whole aisle of soda...the fresh fruits, vegetables and meat are barely 10% of the square footage. While the ethnic grocery stories it's more like 25%...and those stores are larger. Meats of any cut, filets of fish, whole fish, fish head, live fish, live crab and lobster, pigs feet, ox tail...fish of many types...American stores, you'll have your salmon filet and shrimp.
It's true the quality can be hit or miss. I never frequent the Korean stores (hmart, assi mart) anymore unless I know I will eat it within two days. I go there once every few months. I frequent the Chinese and Mexican ones. Too many bad experiences at the Korean ones. When I shop at the Korean ones I open up their meats in the store and smell it...there's been a few times when I get home and open the package, the meat is rotten.
This is not to say I don't have bad experiences at the American markets. I have...milk that expires the next day (I wasn't attentive to the date, just picked the one that was furthest out...which happened to be tomrrow), the good ol rotten strawberry in the middle...but it happens less.
American grocery stores don't offer the same price or quantity because Americans don't demand it. They would rather want their aisle of frozen dinners and breakfast cereals.
I do wonder how often small farms hide price discrimination behind "economies of scale" though.
one only needs to walk through Chinatown to see how much things are cheaper there. It's not just fruit and veggies but things like a haircut, repairing watches, bakeries and even pharmacies.
That is a negative way of saying Chinese people are better at making stuff cheap.
Things are cheap because their raw costs are cheap to begin with. So it is not about "valuing price", but paying for the actual cost that is appropriate.
I can get a filling, healthy lunch for $4-5 there!
I miss that in the UK and the US. In Italy for example a lot of the stuff comes from local farms and tastes way better.
For those who won't bother, this is the TLDR version:
"Chinatown’s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the network supplying most mainstream supermarkets ... Because the wholesalers are in Chinatown, they can deliver fresh produce several times a day, eliminating the need for retailers to maintain storage space or refrigeration"
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/why-fruits-and-veggies-are-...
Come on, really? I'm sort of hoping you're being ironic!? I mean - you're reading articles on HN about fruit and veg in Chinatown. On a Sunday. A few seconds isn't worth getting angsty about :-)
Madox's site is a "small text page"; the WSJ site, even the mobile version, is a stellar scale monolith in comparison.
The Google referrer gives you free access to that article.
How is something this naive in WSJ?
If it weren't for prejudice then Chinatown groceries might price for more profit. The customers are missing out too. Marketing can fix this.
For instance, it's summer in the northern hemisphere right now. You can't turn around without running into a ripe stonefruit (peach, plum, apricot).
Because the local trees are bearing right now, not only do you get high quality produce, but you get it for cheap because there's a glut of supply. But if you want an orange, you settle for an expensive, tasteless orange flown in from Chile, cause it's winter down there and that's when oranges become ripe.
If you tried increasing prices of produce in Chinatown, people would laugh in your face and move on down. The Chinese culture is very food aware and value conscious.
Literally from the start of the article. You and many others might not think like the author but there is a segment of the population who does.
See my comment above about how Chinese culture is food savvy and value conscious. Increasing prices won't increase profit, it will just decrease sales to very low levels, while people laugh and move on down to the next stall.
"That's incorrect. Cheaper produce is generally known to be the best produce.
For instance, it's summer in the northern hemisphere right now. You can't turn around without running into a ripe stonefruit (peach, plum, apricot). Because the local trees are bearing right now, not only do you get high quality produce, but you get it for cheap because there's a glut of supply. But if you want an orange, you settle for an expensive, tasteless orange flown in from Chile, cause it's winter down there and that's when oranges become ripe."
was a response to "People like the author believe produce is cheaper because of poor quality."
but okay whatever you say.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China
I think snob effect is the main factor, as I listed it first. Assuming I jumped to xenophobia as the deciding factor is biased. Of course how we view Muslim immigrants and Chinese produce are orders of magnitude apart in impact.
I guess what I'm getting at is rushing to the conclusion that xenophobia is the only deciding factor here seems a bit premature, and that the problem itself is likely multifaceted.
Free market has its advantages.
I say this because I spent a dozen years living in southern Europe where, not only are all food prices lower, (eg a loaf of bread is often 1/10 what it is in the states and American brand boxed cereal and California wine is cheaper then in their paces of origin.) but also there are product differences that reduce prices but not quality (eg eggs and milk that don't require refrigeration, vastly less packaging, few advertisements)
So yes marketing would raise prices but by bringing in more naive consumers and raising their expenses.
Being aware of products on sale for cheaper does not help if they're on another continent. (Given that the EU is basically an agricultural-subsidy league, it's not surprising to see produce for cheaper, either, though it depends on local wages as well.)
But the real thing which drives down the prices isn't just savvy, it's that these customers care about the price and are wiling to go to additional efforts to pay less, whether by shopping at a less-traditional or inconvenient place, or by using coupons. Meanwhile the rich-white-single-programmer happily cruises down to a nearby Whole Foods because he really doesn't care about an extra few dollars on his grocery bill; he even buys the pre-sliced fresh fruit as a convenience.
With regards to milk, note that you can find boxed milk in the US (UHT milk, or even milk powder)... it's just not as common, and culturally is regarded as an inferior good. As for eggs, you'll have to blame the USDA for the mandate that they are washed before shipment (as opposed to by the customer).