Price differences
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Lisa
31 Juli 2012 | Italië, Rome
Today we went to a little store to buy some fruit. We bought a lot of grapes, an apple and a plum. Normally, in the Netherlands, you would pay about 3 or 4 euros for this, so that’s what we were expecting here too. However, we only spent €1,50!
Not only have I convinced myself to never buy fruit at the supermarket anymore, since this was so incredibly delicious and cheap, but I’m also surprised by how cheap fruit can be. Of course, the fruit probably has to travel a bigger distance to get to Amsterdam, so it’s more expensive than in Rome, but more than twice as expensive can’t only be caused by the distance it travels. Maybe the logistics of the supermarket cost us a lot of money.
People say they don’t want to buy organic food because it’s more expensive. But this difference in price made me think. What if food is produced in the area and you buy it in very local stores instead of big supermarkets? Would there still be such a big difference? I don’t think so. Price shouldn’t be an argument not to buy organic food, but right now it is. So either the government has to help to make organic food cheaper, or we should find out how it can be cheaper by changing the method or location of production and, maybe more importantly, the method of sale. Until then I’m gladly going to spend that extra bit of money to buy organic food.
Not only have I convinced myself to never buy fruit at the supermarket anymore, since this was so incredibly delicious and cheap, but I’m also surprised by how cheap fruit can be. Of course, the fruit probably has to travel a bigger distance to get to Amsterdam, so it’s more expensive than in Rome, but more than twice as expensive can’t only be caused by the distance it travels. Maybe the logistics of the supermarket cost us a lot of money.
People say they don’t want to buy organic food because it’s more expensive. But this difference in price made me think. What if food is produced in the area and you buy it in very local stores instead of big supermarkets? Would there still be such a big difference? I don’t think so. Price shouldn’t be an argument not to buy organic food, but right now it is. So either the government has to help to make organic food cheaper, or we should find out how it can be cheaper by changing the method or location of production and, maybe more importantly, the method of sale. Until then I’m gladly going to spend that extra bit of money to buy organic food.
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01 Augustus 2012 - 19:22
Alex:
So... it's cheap. Is that the only thing that matters? Is it organic? Have the farmer's employees been paid properly? Are there many pesticides on it? You are pleading for local fruit ... so may I conclude, that when you are in Holland, you don't want to eat oranges, grapes, bananas, mandarins, pineapples, mango's anymore? Will you settle for only apples and pears in autumn, only berries in the spring, and eat no fruit in the winter? Actually, transport only adds very little to the price of a product... Most supermarkets sell their trademark products with very little profit, and they try to compensate by making a big profit on the fresh products... that is one of the reasons the price is higher there. Apart from that, I don't think that being cheap is always a pro ... meat in supermarkets is very cheap. So should we buy cheap meat? Why is it that meat is so cheap, while vegetables are so expensive? If you figure that one out, you will also understand why organic is more expensive than conventional...
Subsidies, externalizing costs are a few key words you might want to dig into. If you count in all the subsidies that government pay for industrial agriculture, and all the cost for society to stop climate change, clean the water, restore the soils etc .... you will find that organic is not expensive at all. te only difference is that we pay for conventional products through our taxes, while we pay for organic products in the store.
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