When life give you potatoes, make vodka… or?
Boil them, mash them, stick'em in a stew.
4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
71–80 of 154 posts
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only way to profit was too have a large storage tank.
did it not come with the barrels? I figured you'd just need a warehouse and a truck. (which is a pretty big ask, of course, and maybe free labor to pick it up up and move it into the truck...(
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Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#73Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…
> How many trees have to be saved to make it worthwhile for more people breaking their bones?
That has a specific answer, like "twenty". But calculating it would be a hopeless task.
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#74> 4,000 tons
I did some math out of curiosity to better visualize this amount in my head. If we assume that a typical serving of potatoes in a meal where potatoes are an important part is 200g, then with 4 million kg of potatoes you can make 20 million of such meals (1/4 of Germany's population).
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#75Distributing (trucking, rent and employees at grocery stores, etc) the potatoes costs more than growing them. Even if they are available for free at the farm, the market price in the city cannot go below the cost of distribution without grocery stores and shipping companies working for free, which they have no reason to do. These are already some of the lowest-margin businesses out there.
In this case, it seems that Berliner Morgenpost and Ecosia are doing shipping and distribution for free, for PR reasons or maybe as some kind of charitable volunteering project. It's nice of them to volunteer their time, but it seems strange to talk about “a story about the absurdities of our food system”. Are they saying that it is absurd that a newspaper doesn't permanently turn into a money-losing grocery distributor?
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#76Berlin is a great place to observe policies with good intentions, yet negative second-order effects. Distributing free potatoes will likely cause waste somewhere else, as e.g. people will buy less potatoes in supermarkets. The waste just becomes less visible as supermarkets dispose of food every day. Another current exhibit is the prohibition of using salt for removing snow and ice from the pavements because it's "ba…
> While that is true to some degree, the Berlin policy conveniently ignores all second-order effects: Sidewalks are more slippery, more people get hurt
I seriously doubt they did not know that. The whole point of salt is to prevent people from falling. Of course they knew more people will fall.
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#77Ultimately this may just move the wastage somehwere else: people may get those for free instead of buying them, leading to waste in supermarkets/shops. Or they might take more than they need because it's free and end up throwing them away. It seems that they acknowledge that they are doing thus because there is a supply glut so potatoes will go to waste in any case... Ultimately this give away is a waste of efforts,…
It might be a lossy savings, but I would think at least some percentage of people who take the free potatoes weren't going to buy them and will eat some of them. So maybe you get 5-10 percent less total waste for the labor time, pessimistically? And hopefully more.
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#78I would want at least a ton of ketchup with that.
This is Germany. We might also need mayo, depending on preference.
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#79Ich bin ein Berliner
Re: 4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin
#80That’s fun! The distribution points are too far from me, and getting the free potatoes would be completely impractical, but I am sure some people will benefit.