Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 246 posts

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#131

Post by sitharus »

wutbrodo wrote: post #128
tn13 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second that. It is very much like saying there is free healthcare in Venezuela. Fruits and Vegetables are cheaper in Mexican stories, Indian (dots) stores and Chinese Stores than say Walmart or Target. But they are in substantially lower quality. Of course if you are regular and you personally cook then you will have a very good understanding what which store has the cheaper and best stuff. In my experience Onions,…

> Indian (dots) stores Huh?

I think GP means Indians from India instead of American Indians but is using a racial stereotype to describe this.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#132

Post by akiselev »

greeneggs wrote: post #116
akiselev wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you shopped at Whole Foods or Bristol Farms for seasonal products? Compared to the major grocery store chains their produce is leaps and bounds better. I don't believe in the organic marketing crap but their food, especially when it comes to fruit, is amazing, unlike anything you can find at Kroger, Publix, or Safeway. Cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, pears, apples, tomatoes, and countl…

Whole Foods produce is only better in areas that have a Whole Foods. In areas without a Whole Foods, all the produce goes to the lower-end stores and sold for the lower prices, regardless of quality. Once Whole Foods moves in, they split off the higher-quality produce, selling it for a higher price, and the quality everywhere else drops.

Do you have any data on that? How would you know that the food that would be marked up by Whole Foods is sent instead to regular groceries to be sold for cheaper? Maybe the good produce grown locally at small scale is sold to local stores but given the extremely lucrative agricultural export market, I find it very hard to believe that the good produce is sold cheap locally instead of shipped elsewhere at a huge markup. California avacados or oranges, for example, cost significantly more in Florida or New York, far beyond the extra cost of transportation, spoilage, etc. and this profitability fuels the California agriculture industry.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#133

Post by kuschku »

jimmywanger wrote: post #85
peterbonney wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think that one factor is that in the Chinese culture, you don't expect everything to be good and available during all seasons." 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…

I don't think it's an ethnic thing. But I definitely think it's a cultural thing. I agree with you about how many generations-removed you are from food production. Rather, how many steps/middlemen you're used to. 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 af…

In Germany, a lot of people still buy vegetables from farmers markets, or try to only buy locally grown stuff in supermarkets.

Luckily, the production country and region has always to be marked, so people can make an informed choice.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#134

Post by kuschku »

majewsky wrote: post #117
honkhonkpants wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asparagus is harvested in the winter!

In Germany, asparagus season is just over, lasting from April to June. Interestingly, asparagus is one of the few vegetables which Germans fully accept as being available only seasonally. And conversely, they go totally crazy during asparagus season for no apparent reason. About the only other seasonal vegetable is kale, which Northern Germans will once a year cook to death and serve with disgustingly fat sausages wh…

There’s some more things Germans accept as seasonal: Plums, Strawberries and non-frozen raspberries.

Especially strawberries – during early summer, on every street corner there’s someone selling strawberries from a small camping trailer painted red with green roof.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#135

Post by kuschku »

greeneggs wrote: post #119
tacostakohashi wrote: post #72

I can't help but think that this article, and other comments, gloss over some major, obvious factors: 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…

But what you are missing is that it is not primarily about the costs. The prices elsewhere are higher because those grocers want the prices to be high. They make more money from it, and there is insufficient competition to force them to lower prices. 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…

Do you have an ALDI or Trader Joes near you? Can you compare price and quality of their products?

I’d be interested.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#136

Post by Cerium »

jimmywanger wrote: post #78
sidek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Lived in HK for a long time, had lots of friends who grew up there/were very local.. never saw this happen. Is it regional?

You know, I never thought about it. Maybe. 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 headin…

By the way, in Cupertino there is a restaurant called "Shanghai Dumpling". They serve some of the best soup dumplings I have had. The soup is not too salty and does not leave an oily mouth feeling. The service is poor, but food fast and delicious.

10895 S. Blaney Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#137

Post by kuschku »

grok2 wrote: post #47
vinceguidry wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand. Chinatown can do it because it's ethnic residents don't just want a great selection of produce, they demand it. They want it bad enough to fuel an entire alternative supply chain. If the people buying Chinatown's produce were replaced by less-discerning customers, the produce markets would disappear overnight and the farmers would have to unload their current crops at cut-rate prices. Normal customers don't w…

This still doesn't explain why it is cheap -- it's cheap likely because there are not too many steps between the consumer and the producer? And not too much money spent on infrastructure...

Mostly, because there’s competition.

Most normal supermarkets act like a cartel instead.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#138

Post by kuschku »

venomsnake wrote: post #35
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Growing up, I remember Marina Foods in Cupertino being much fresher than the other grocers. > 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 ma…

Lets start with the obvious - a modern food is disgustingly safe compared to what a human immune system is capable of handling. No matter what Madison Avenue has tried to convince the US public - a single or couple of bacteria won't kill you. 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…

Modern food is so ridulously safe, in Germany a common dish is to put raw minced meat onto bread – Mettbrötchen – and it’s riskless.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#139

Post by mikekchar »

syphilis2 wrote: post #26

The USDA shares detailed data on food pricing. 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.

I've wanted a website for price spreads for ages. I keep ending up doing the math myself whenever one of these topics come up. Thanks!

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.

Re: Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Cheap in Chinatown

#140

Post by tacostakohashi »

greeneggs wrote: post #119
tacostakohashi wrote: post #72

I can't help but think that this article, and other comments, gloss over some major, obvious factors: 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…

But what you are missing is that it is not primarily about the costs. The prices elsewhere are higher because those grocers want the prices to be high. They make more money from it, and there is insufficient competition to force them to lower prices. 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…

I don't think I missed that at all - I said it's mainly about high volumes, low margins, and intense competition (for example, I'd imagine the rents are actually pretty high).

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.

Post reply on HN