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Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

theguardian.com

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Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#131

Post by seanmcdirmid »

baby wrote: post #63
jfoutz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 20 foreign movies are allowed into China per year. Unless part of the movie takes place in China. Lots of movies have a special cut, just for that reason.

Note that you can buy any movies you want in ripped dvd form in the street, some restaurants or some shops anywhere in China. They even sold it on my campus uni. Its common practice to go there once a week to pick up a bunch of dvds

The DVD shops have been disappearing as more content is pirated online. Progress I guess.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#132

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dagw wrote: post #81
duiker101 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's an interesting thing that I had no idea was happening! Do you have any examples of movies that have an extended cut to include scenes from China?

Iron Man 3 is one such movie. There is a rather out of place China only product placement scene for some drink, a scene where Iron Man is seen visiting china on TV and a final scene where Tony goes to China to have a Chinese doctor (played by a famous Chinese movie star) help operate on him to remove the shrapnel from his chest. All the scenes can be found of Youtube.

The milk product placement was funny. The doctor/nurse scene was just so weird and out of place.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#133

Post by kiliantics »

psergeant wrote: post #115
Retric wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's closer to 6-7 million: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16761784 Many of the 30 million people who are said to live in the city of Chongqing are actually agricultural workers living in a rural setting, he says. In fact, he says, the area is so huge it's about the size of Austria.

Hangzhou is 9m in the urban area, and I’d never heard of it when I went to visit a friend there. There are very few points of interest there: it’s a bit like Fresno, only with 20x the population.

I thought Hangzhou was pretty cool. I had heard of it before going because it is famous for its tea. There is a lovely lake and mountain trails for hiking. Cool monastery and other holy places. I took a bike ride out into the tea fields and went to a tea museum too. It's a very popular destination for Chinese tourists, it has a lot of historic significance.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#134

Post by seanmcdirmid »

amelius wrote: post #80
andrewksl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the Chinese buy these types of imported goods (if not all imported goods in general) because of a perception that they are of a certain level of quality. The "disruption" would not be copying an innovation so much as building branding of a Chinese alternative. For most cases, it would involve changing the widely held belief that Chinese products are inferior. That kind of brings that Chinese caviar company…

Okay, but what if a Chinese milk company decides to find an international reseller (with its own QA lab)? I imagine that a lot of "western" milk products already contain Chinese raw materials (e.g. mineral/vitamin supplements), so in a sense it would not be a very new thing.

You can’t trust the supply chain in china. Even if you do everything right, someone will create a fake product using your brand if you are successful. Supermarkets will then use the fake product because it is cheaper, and consumers get screwed.

For babies, bad milk powder can be horrible, many parents won’t take the risk and will prefer what they can get via a verified supply chain, the only choice they have right now is buying abroad.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#135

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yardie wrote: post #114
NiklasMort wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also are responsible for a shortage of baby milk powder and baby food from Germany, the Chinese buying all markets empty. At least that was in the news a few years ago

They’re is an import quota on formula. You can import a small amount for a few days use. Anything greater is regarded as smuggling.

That isn’t true. You can import much more than a few days, especially the way milk powder is concentrated. You aren’t supposed to import for multiple babies, but the Chinese customs agents aren’t going to bat their eye at a suitcase full of milk powder packages.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#136

Post by la_oveja »

microcolonel wrote: post #95

Okay, then produce more. I don't get these "shortage" news stories. The only way you get a prolonged shortage like this is if the supply is naturally limited (which it isn't, for all intents and purposes) or if it is artificially limited (which it might be). Either way, the shortage is not because of increased demand, but because of reduced supply and/or incorrect (or deliberately manipulative) pricing.

You do understand that can take 4 years to make a high-end certified ham? And Spaniards buy this ham for Christmas?

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#137

Post by lazyant »

angarg12 wrote: post #35

We spaniards are just absolutely terrible at marketing. Every time that I see how italians have managed to convince the world to consume their produces, I feel ashamed. And when we finally manage to get recognition, we can't meet the demand because we are not set up to deal with international demand. I hope this trend continues and we find new, healthier ways to expand our economy.

Yep, for ex some olive oil branded as Italian is in fact Spanish [citation needed]

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#138

Post by ranit »

joaodlf wrote: post #92
angarg12 wrote: post #35

We spaniards are just absolutely terrible at marketing. Every time that I see how italians have managed to convince the world to consume their produces, I feel ashamed. And when we finally manage to get recognition, we can't meet the demand because we are not set up to deal with international demand. I hope this trend continues and we find new, healthier ways to expand our economy.

I feel the same as Portuguese. Granted we just don't carry the weight of the likes of Spain/France/Italy. But we are just so bad at exporting, it's unreal. I live in the UK and it's common to see all sorts of wines and meats from southern European countries in the supermarkets. Portugal will have 1 or 2 bottles of wine, typically from vineyards owned by UK nationals in Portugal. Even our Port - which is world famous…

In Porto cellars we visited a few years ago, the hosts explained that all grapes come from the Duoro River Valley in these cellars (technically not in Porto city proper, but Villa Nova de Gaia on the south bank of the river). And Porto (the product) is manufactured only there. I understood that they do not batch it per vineyards.

Are there any distinguishing signs on the labels that show the particular grape source?

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#139

Post by eighthnate »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #34

I live in Spain - a lot of jamon still in shops, prices are the same. Glad to see people of China love it, but there is no shortage of jamon, definitely.

It's just another guardian clickbait. No shortage of that unfortunately.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#140

Post by dgut »

loopbit wrote: post #125
dgut wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this been mentioned before, but I entirely disagree. The more likely culprit is the 35 years of post-war Franco rule, it crippled Spain under a period when most global brands were being established. It's also no coincidence Zara was founded in 1975, now the world's largest apparel retailer.

At some point we'll have to stop blaming Franco for every problem we have. Yes, it was a time of isolationism that crippled us in many ways, but most of the people working today never lived through the worst of it. Even companies that were founded while Franco lived (or before) are now managed by a younger[0] crowd In my (very personal) opinion, the fact that not many people, comparatively speaking, are fluent in any…

I was explicitly referring to the topic at hand: Marketing abroad/International brands. What I described is undeniably one of the major reasons, if not the most important one. Most true global brands were established in the post-war period (Spain couldn't have participated in it that is).

Language barriers are a common issue for all our neighboring countries, more so in the past.

> most of the people working today never lived through the worst of it

You don't have to be around when the earthquake hits to live with its consequences. But sure, things are going somewhere, where exactly I'm not sure.

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