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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

#71

Post by xchaotic »

danso wrote: post #18
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.

Modern blockbuster movies are already plagued with hectic editing and an overabundance of excuses-for-people-to-be-making-a-helicopter-landing. But some of the Chinese scenes/collaboration have worked out nicely. I can't be the only American ignorant of Chinese cityscapes. The Shanghai scene in "Skyfall" was one of the most movie's visually memorable images. Maybe "Pacific Rim"'s latter half would have taken place in…

This always reminds me that the city of Chongqing has 30m people and most people have never heard of it.

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

#72

Post by namdnay »

mc32 wrote: post #8
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't lower density animal production a good thing?

Well, moderation, as they say. In this case vast amounts of land are used to produce little product. Not sure how efficient it is. It suffers from "scalability" which kinda results in scarcity and then perception. I understand wanting free range --but this is an artificial diet constrained to grasses and acorns --swine usually are omnivorous and would eat more, but this ham requires only those two --so they must dedi…

I wouldn't say it's an artificial diet - It's the natural diet for a swine living in the Mediterranean brushland

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

#74

Post by perryh2 »

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

I heard that you can just download complete movies off of links from Baidu.

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

#75

Post by duiker101 »

jfoutz wrote: post #9
danso wrote: post #5

Besides this ham, evidently Chinese demand has been blamed for the global shortage of avocados [0] and the lack of butter in France [1]. I've personally most noticed the effect when it comes to wide-release movies, in which the heroes manage to find some reason to end up for a brief scene in China, or to use Chinese brand products -- Civil War, Transformers, and Robocop come to mind. There's also the suspicion that A…

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.

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?

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

#76

Post by derda »

amelius wrote: post #62
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like an opportunity for Europe to earn a lot of money once they manage to increase production. There's still a lot of wealth inequality, both inside countries (e.g. the UK) and in Europe itself (the former DDR is a good example).

But what if the Chinese copy your product right after you have scaled up production?

In case of baby milk powder the alternatives exist on the Chinese market. Even german brands are present in Chinese supermarkets. But after some high profile cases regarding low quality products[0], some people are willing to pay a decent premium for a product sourced from a European supermarket. On the height of this crisis I have actually seen signs "max 2 packets per person" for baby milk in german supermarkets close to train stations / airports. I actually met someone who financed a trip to China by maxing out his baggage allowance with baby milk.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

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

#77

Post by andrewksl »

amelius wrote: post #62
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like an opportunity for Europe to earn a lot of money once they manage to increase production. There's still a lot of wealth inequality, both inside countries (e.g. the UK) and in Europe itself (the former DDR is a good example).

But what if the Chinese copy your product right after you have scaled up production?

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 to mind. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-19/the-world...

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

#78

Post by amelius »

derda wrote: post #76
amelius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if the Chinese copy your product right after you have scaled up production?

In case of baby milk powder the alternatives exist on the Chinese market. Even german brands are present in Chinese supermarkets. But after some high profile cases regarding low quality products[0], some people are willing to pay a decent premium for a product sourced from a European supermarket. On the height of this crisis I have actually seen signs "max 2 packets per person" for baby milk in german supermarkets cl…

Yes, I've also heard about cases where supermarket personnel deliberately mutate the packaging (e.g. by scratching) to make the milk unsuitable for sale on the Chinese market.

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

#79

Post by VeejayRampay »

danso wrote: post #5

Besides this ham, evidently Chinese demand has been blamed for the global shortage of avocados [0] and the lack of butter in France [1]. I've personally most noticed the effect when it comes to wide-release movies, in which the heroes manage to find some reason to end up for a brief scene in China, or to use Chinese brand products -- Civil War, Transformers, and Robocop come to mind. There's also the suspicion that A…

Frenchman here, the shortage of butter is partly related to an increase in consumption of butter in China (and the United States as well) but honestly it is also partly explained by a problem with the supply chain in the country. We produce huge surplus of milk every year, farmers end up having to throw it away because of EU regulation, so there's no reason why we should have a shortage of butter.

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

#80

Post by amelius »

andrewksl wrote: post #77
amelius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if the Chinese copy your product right after you have scaled up production?

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.

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