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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

#81

Post by lotsofpulp »

sandworm101 wrote: post #73
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?

>> 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. I still think about the UK. I cannot imagine anywhere in the UK being more than an hour or two from anywhere else.

Why? UK includes Scotland, and you can easily go 600+ miles from a point in northern Scotland to southern England. Even in England, Liverpool is 200+ miles from London, and there are farther places in England.

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

#82

Post by vkou »

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.

That's also how groceries were distributed in rural areas of the Soviet Union, so this way pre-dates the 90s.

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

#83

Post by enhdless »

NaOH wrote: post #44
phil21 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bag…

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap b…

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

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

#84

Post by angry_octet »

nine_k wrote: post #71
ashtonkem wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasionally ships can be had for extremely cheap when the former owner cannot afford the maintenance on it. It's more common with small pleasure craft, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear about small cargo ships being occasionally abandoned up there.

Indeed: even if you get a ship for free, the crew is not free. Unless you're a certified captain already, you probably can't just operate the ship yourself. Also, now you have to pay for maintenance, fuel, mooring, loading and unloading cargo, etc. I suspect that $3k is not sufficient to start and sustain such an operation, so some steps are clearly missing. (Can't help but remember Grim Fandango, where a similar tra…

My favourite example is Roman Abramovich, who somehow made the transition from reselling rubber ducks from his apartment in 1991 to having $100M to buy an oil company worth $3B, to obscene oligarch wealth a decade later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Abramovich

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

#85

Post by wenc »

Marsymars wrote: post #2

I visited Dawson City in the Yukon last year and was surprised to see Kirkland Signature goods on sale at the general store. Didn't think to ask how they got there.

Was the labeling in both French and English?

If not, it's probably from Costco US. Otherwise it's from Costco Canada.

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

#87

Post by s5300 »

enhdless wrote: post #83
NaOH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap b…

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

Inquire with the manufacturer listed on the packaging? There's always some sort of chain to information on packaging, though unless there are laws in place against this, I think we're moving closer to that starting with a qr code than a company name and phone number/address...

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

#88

Post by projektfu »

enhdless wrote: post #83
NaOH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap b…

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

Calling/writing to customer service is usually a good start. A lot of this information they are required to have even if they don't need to write it on the label.

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

#89

Post by NaOH »

enhdless wrote: post #83
NaOH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap b…

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

In the US (and Europe, too, I believe) food manufacturers are increasingly mandated to be able to trace their ingredients back to the original source. Each handler along the way is expected to do this, so theoretically there's a paper trail from the beginning to the end on a store shelf.

If there are particular foods for which you'd like this information, I would check company websites and then reach out to producers if that isn't getting the information you want. I can't say how forthcoming companies are with this documentation. Keep in mind trade secrets could be involved that might be violated just by providing that level of specificity.

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

#90

Post by xeromal »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
sandworm101 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. I still think about the UK. I cannot imagine anywhere in the UK being more than an hour or two from anywhere else.

Why? UK includes Scotland, and you can easily go 600+ miles from a point in northern Scotland to southern England. Even in England, Liverpool is 200+ miles from London, and there are farther places in England.

Yeah, I think it's just someone from the US thinking in their terms. Florida is 447 miles itself.
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