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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

#91

Post by DangerousPie »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #79
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.

> 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.

Source?

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

#92

Post by joaodlf »

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 - It's always from UK owned vineyards.

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

#93

Post by lumberjack »

jpatokal wrote: post #82
VeejayRampay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The actual explanation is rather more boring: almost all butter in France is sold to supermarkets, who negotiate prices once a year. If world market prices are higher, dairy products sell elsewhere instead and French supermarkets run dry. https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21730877-forget-about-...

So it is not just the government that can cause shortages by mishandling the supply chain. I always thought, it is quite ironic how centralised the food supply has become, with a few supermarket chains dictating everything, as if they were some communist government trying to micromanage everything.

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

#94

Post by dagw »

vetinari wrote: post #70
Jakawao wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two Spanish brothers are trying to make their own jamón in Texas. Acornseekers.com

They must be aware that will run into geographical indication protection. Similarly to Italians making cheese all over Europe, but being unable to call it Parmesan. So in the end, they can have a product that will taste very similarly, but they will have to sell them under different name.

The US isn't as strict as Europe when it comes to enforcing those sorts of rules. For example you can buy bottles of US made sparkling wine labeled "California Champagne" and various cheese like products labeled "Parmensan" that have never been anywhere near Italy.

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

#95

Post by microcolonel »

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.

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

#96

Post by wccrawford »

icebraining wrote: post #30
puranjay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If The Great Wall (starring Matt Damon) is any indication, be prepared for a near future where Chinese blockbusters will compete against Hollywood blockbusters for audiences. China is the only movie market which can afford the same budgets as Hollywood. The storytelling and CGI isn't quite there yet but it will be - it's a matter of when, not if. As a neutral third party, I'm pretty excited to see this clash of east-…

The storytelling (...) isn't quite there yet Funny comment, since the story and screenplay writers are actually Americans :)

Direction and production mean a lot to storytelling, too, though. It's not enough just to write a good script.

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

#97

Post by danso »

duiker101 wrote: post #75
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.

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?

Here's one of the better compilations I've found:

http://www.businessinsider.com/hollywood-movies-in-china-201...

I'm not an expert on this, but I think the China-set scenes are generally included in the U.S. theatrical cut, Skyfall's sniper fight in Shanghai being an example [0]. I did a little more Googling and found there were a few examples of scenes meant only for China and left out of the U.S. release. Iron Man 3 apparently had 4 more minutes in which Dr. Wu gets some time to hawk Chinese products [1]. Apparently, some notable Chinese bloggers/moviegoers didn't like the obvious shilling [2].

There are far more examples of things being cut out than being added. In Skyfall's Shanghai scene for example, Chinese censors apparently didn't like the bit where Bond kills a security guard. The listed reasoning for the cuts are heavy-handed to the point of amusement, e.g. ""Mission: Impossible 3" dropped a shot of clothes on clotheslines in Shanghai for the Chinese cut. Apparently, the lack of dryer ownership is a sensitive issue." [2]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMW4dN5sGb0

[1] https://kotaku.com/why-many-in-china-hate-iron-man-3s-chines...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39m85puOQok

[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/18/407619652/...

edit: Apparently Looper, which changed one of its locales from Paris to Shanghai, has extra scenes for Chinese audiences:

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the_extra_looper_scenes_y

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

#98

Post by chairmanwow »

perryh2 wrote: post #74
baby wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can also "buy" the movie on Chinese marketplaces for ¥10 (~$1.5) and the seller will message you a Baidu Cloud link with the movie.

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

#99

Post by kevinconaway »

kaoD wrote: post #84
mc32 wrote: post #4

The salient part was that it takes five acres per swine. They only have two hinds each... And they can only raise them in two areas of Spain. Seems production is pretty constrained by resources (in this case land with oak trees). That combined with 48-mo curing makes it hard to scale up. And we used to complain about almond production consuming too many resources (water) per output...

We have a saying here in Spain: from swine, even the gait. Yes, they only have two hinds each, but front legs are sold too (paletilla), papada (jowl), morro (snout), manitas (hoof), lengua (tongue), oreja (ears), various embutidos (cold meat) made traditionally stuffing meat and fat inside pork intestines (like chorizo, salchichón...) And of course everything else that's traditionally edible anywhere in the world (lo…

> We have a saying here in Spain: from swine, even the gait.

The American version is “everything but the oink”

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

#100

Post by Retric »

xchaotic wrote: post #71
danso wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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