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A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

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Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#191

Post by chewz »

dx87 wrote: post #5

That's actually how a lot of businesses in rural parts of Alaska work, even places that don't require a boat or plane to access. My dad lives right off the highway in a small town in Alaska, and the closest thing to a grocery store is an old airplane hanger that one of the locals runs a general store out of. The owner makes weekly trips to Costco, which is ~4 hours away, and buys as much as they can fit into a big U-…

In Thailand and SE Asia there is a lot of retailers based on pick-up truck that is making slow rounds along country roads, through remote villages selling necessities like vegetables, food etc.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#192

Post by summm »

fxtentacle wrote: post #129
solotronics wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.

On the contrary. When I lived in such a village on vacation, it was incredibly liberating. The bakery guy would have a promotion every week with something new for you to try, but apart from that you didn't have to make any decisions. I find choosing between 20 almost identical flavors of sandwich bread in your average supermarket to be much more mentally exhausting. And since you knew which weekly special everyone el…

In Germany most fish is anyway required to be frozen for food safety: correctly freezing kills most parasites.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#193

Post by notyourday »

Spooky23 wrote: post #67
notyourday wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. So I have friends that are reasonably known restaurateurs who obviously shut down their restaurants. I was talking to them about the logistics and the issues with the supply chain. It was rather eye opening to me. TL;DR : the problem with the supply chain is that…

They pay more to Sysco for trade credit and delivery. When you buy at a restaurant depot type place, prices are similar to a Costco for unfinished cuts. As for the supply of meat, expect that to change. In upstate NY most cuts of beef are gone and trimmed chicken is either not in stock or sold before noon.

But that's the thing - a restaurant depot is not suffering from the lack of customers because it is not designed to sell commodity products at a premium.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#194

Post by notyourday »

jefftk wrote: post #78
notyourday wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create an account on most of the restaurant supply services and place pre-paid orders. You would be shocked at the pricing ( there would be a minimum order value as well )

I've been placing orders with a specialty restaurant supplier here in Boston, and the prices are generally equal or better than retail. Including delivery! As long as we're up for eating the minimum quantity it's a good deal.

They are comparable to Whole Foods or special store prices which are significantly higher than prices in grocery stores regular people ( read : people who don't spend $100/dinner for two and don't bat an eye ) shop.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#195

Post by notyourday »

smnrchrds wrote: post #68
notyourday wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create an account on most of the restaurant supply services and place pre-paid orders. You would be shocked at the pricing ( there would be a minimum order value as well )

Why do they do it then? Why won't they simply buy retail?

I asked that specific question from a friend of mine.

His answer was:

* we charge $20 for a plate that costs is $4 in ingredients because we are lazy to squeeze it down to $3.50.

* Single sourcing means I don't have to trust ten of my employees with credit cards to run around the city to get stuff.

* Single delivery means I can schedule it better.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#196

Post by bluedino »

so33 wrote: post #131
jrockway wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the prices were insane, some of them are exactly what I pay at my grocery store in Brooklyn. $7.99 for a block of cheese? Yup. But as the weight/volume increases, their prices skyrocket where wight/volume doesn't seem to matter at all here. Obviously that's where the cost comes from. What is interesting is how similar the extremes are. In the middle of nowhere, the cost of the product is dominated by shipping…

> It's only when you go out to the suburbs, probably one of society's least efficient constructions, that you see the lowest prices -- a perfect balance of efficiency, I guess. It is weird and I wonder if there's some lesson in here. I suspect the inefficiencies are just externalized! Rent is low because land is cheap(er) in suburbia, but society pays in increased average travel times* as well as the high costs of ro…

How many trips do you have to make to the store to equal one Costco run?

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#197

Post by ghaff »

bung wrote: post #119

Great... now I have to re-watch Northern Exposure!

Unfortunately it's one of those series that you can't get the unaltered original because of music rights. (It's also pretty much a complete fantasy view of a small Alaskan town but it was a fun series in any case.)

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#198

Post by throwaway0a5e »

madaxe_again wrote: post #164
koyote wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting! I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. Or is it just a matter of convenience?

Small, but the transport network isn’t necessarily reliable. Mountains are a big obstacle. Croatia, like most of the balkans, is really mountainous. When it’s not mountains it’s islands. Nightmare for transport infrastructure development. A lot of rural Europe has laughably poor mountain infrastructure - dirt roads, often badly damaged, are sometimes the only way in or out of a village, and when it rains, the guy wit…

Poor people in similarly remote (similar travel distances but less circuitous routes) parts of the US and Canada with manage to get to Walamrt and back about once a week in run of the mill 20yo SUVs.

Either there's some economic situation preventing similar transportation solutions working in Europe or the people who say that Europe has great transit options have a lot of explaining to do (frankly I think it's a little of both).

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#199

Post by adamcharnock »

Scoundreller wrote: post #25
dx87 wrote: post #5

That's actually how a lot of businesses in rural parts of Alaska work, even places that don't require a boat or plane to access. My dad lives right off the highway in a small town in Alaska, and the closest thing to a grocery store is an old airplane hanger that one of the locals runs a general store out of. The owner makes weekly trips to Costco, which is ~4 hours away, and buys as much as they can fit into a big U-…

Rural Croatia too, except it’s a truck that comes to all of the villages 3x/week with staple items. Plays ridiculously stereotypical Croatian music through a loudspeaker to announce his arrival. And then a meat truck once a week and a fish truck more irregularly. Took requests as well. I think of it like villages having Amazon Prime starting in the late 90s.

It’s the same here in rural Portugal. However, if you just go to the van and ask for some bread (for example), they look at you as though you’re mad. After all, you didn’t order it yesterday, therefore why on earth would they have bread for you today?!

I get why it works that way, but I was bemused nonetheless.

Re: A man feeding a remote Alaska town with a Costco card and a ship

#200

Post by brohee »

joncp wrote: post #10

The scarcity of flour, especially bread flour piques my curiosity. I haven't heard about anyone eating vastly more bread than before the quarantine. It's just that everyone is making it at home instead of buying it with meals at restaurants. One would expect the flour not being shipped to the restaurants would be redirected into the retail supply chain but that doesn't appear to be the case. The only explanations I c…

Packaging issue I think. Bakers have no trouble finding any, and in my city at least one baker took the opportunity and resold floor in paper bags (at pretty absurd markup).
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