Food prices

[ChrisGreaves]

I read papers daily from Australia, Britain, Canada and the USA.
Every man and his dog are complaining about food prices.
Except me. I am not owned by a dog.

Last week, while dog-sitting, I decided to treat myself to a bag/clump of celery at Foodland. I haven't bought celery in years, thinking of it as a vegetable that provides little nutrition, and that I am better off buying spinach (which I don't do; I harvest dandelion and beet leaves).
I am enjoying the stick of celery in the morning at at nighttime.

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So in Swyers this morning I spotted bunches of celery. About the same price as Foodland last week. So OK. About $5.00 for about 20 stalks (of differing lengths)

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But then you can contribute a polystyrene tray to a landfill site by paying $1.54 for what appeared to me to be a single stalk, chopped into four portions.

I just had to ask!
Kelly says that a tray containing one stick, chopped in three places, is bought by people making a pot of soup; they want just a bit of celery and don't want to pay $5.00 and throw the rest away.

And I stand there dazed. What's wrong with eating what is basically a bunch of celery that costs only $3.50? I mean, pay the $5.00 and enjoy a salad?
Or buy two turkey thighs and boil a huge pot of meat and broth, add a bunch of celery chopped, pepper to taste, carrots, onions etc and freeze the lot in margarine tubs?

The world has gone crazy.
And yes, there have been times in my life when I have had too little cash to splurge on a bunch of celery, but I suspect that our world is suffering under delusions of poverty.

Cheers
Chris

P.S. I rarely compare prices between the two supermarkets; I believe that the big savings in food costs lies in cooking your own meals, rather than paying factory employees to cook meals for you.
C

[HansV]

It's crazy! Almost as bad as the pre-peeled oranges in plastic boxes of a few years ago...

[DocAElstein]

...
The world has gone crazy.
.... I suspect that our world is suffering under delusions of poverty.....

Interesting food for thought, Chris. I was just having some similar thinkings myself.. I just got back from trundling down to the Marktkauf supermarket not far from me, with my push bike and trailer, mostly just for the fun of it, it’s all downhill, I didn’t really need anything. But its sometimes fun around this time of the day to experience the people full in stress, trying to quickly buy that one important ingredient for their family meal or dinner party that they forgot. I bought a dozen buns as they were still warm and on offer. There were a lot of people waiting on the checkout, no problem, I bit the end off each warm bun slowly and enjoyed it while observing the stressed out world.
When I got outside I was relieved to see the row of waiting SUVs so as not to have to offer my services to carry the heavy shopping bag home for anyone. As I trundled home alongside the road there were a lot of cars many with people in annoyed that they had to stop at a traffic light junction, even though no cars wanted to come out of the junction. About there, just a few houses away from the supermarket, one large house has a small table outside on the pavement where they put spare food, for anybody to take, often vegetables, - I am not sure if they grow them themselves, or maybe part of some new local food sharing initiative I heard about. It always looks very fresh. Today it was full of some sort of lettuce, dripping wet, obviously freshly washed and waiting for me. I dropped a couple in my trailer without even having to stop and I still had green at the junction so I then crossed at the junction and it seemed that the people in the cars were looking at me with some sort of pity or condescending looks.
Strange.
Sitting here with a warm pulley on the veranda with Buns stuffed full of fresh Lettuce I am feeling rather rich and privileged to be here.

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(Looking again at that pic though, I am thinking that it might be that time of the year to think about washing my coffee Mug)


Alan

[ChrisGreaves]

It's crazy! Almost as bad as the pre-peeled oranges in plastic boxes of a few years ago...

A few days quiet reflection and a news article from the ABC (Australian supermarket efforts to cut down packaging 'disturbing', plastic waste expert says after report released) prompts me to comment that just two(?) years ago our two supermarkets and, I think, our two remaining convenience stores decided to stop issuing those flimsy plastic bags and switch to the stronger, less degradable bags; the ones that I pick up from the roadside, toss in the washing machine, and use to help people cart away artichokes and apple trees.

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The idea of chopping up two stalks of celery (as evidence: the two "thick" bases of the stalks) and using a polystyrene tray and a sheet of cling-film to allow the customer to carry them to the check-out counter seems, well, counter-productive to a human an intelligent approach to reducing landfill site mass.

Not to mention labour costs and hence the price of food.

Today's challenge: Dream up some plausible scheme to make the sale of two sticks of celery worse.

Jeers, Chris

[HansV]

Wrap each half-stick in cling film individually, then pack them in a plastic box, with a transparent plastic wrap around the box.

[ChrisGreaves]

Wrap each half-stick in cling film individually, then pack them in a plastic box, with a transparent plastic wrap around the box.

What's wrong with wrapping each half-stick in cling film individually, then placing each wrapped half-stick on a black plastic tray and wrapping each black plastic tray in cling-film before ganging the four wrapped plastic trays onto a larger white plastic tray and wrapping THAT in cling-film?

With a convenient roll of tear-off flimsy bags alongside the display case so that you can protect the cling film on the white box while you can lift the white tray FROM the display case INTO your shopping cart?

Have you NO imagination?

Cheers, Chris
P.S. Rule #1. Recursion is not allowed.

[PaulB]

Starting to sound like Costco packaging.

[ChrisGreaves]

Starting to sound like Costco packaging.

Operative syllable "cost"?
Cheers, Chris