Bought a punnet of blueberries the other day at the supermarket.
New Zealand 'organic' blueberries - 125gm at $3.98AUS, which equates to $14.47AUS per pound weight.
I could've bought the Australian blueberries but they were $4.98AUS for 125gm which works out at $18.10AUS per pound weight.
The New Zealand variety taste exactly the same as the Australian variety.
Why is it that we can buy Californian navel oranges and black cherries, New Zealand blueberries and kiwifruit (Chinese Gooseberries), Chinese grown Garlic (inferior to the Australian variety as it may be), and Thailand bok choi and wombok cabbage - cheaper than we can buy the Australian grown products?
Same goes for seafood - Farm prawns and Basa fish fillets from Asia and smoked cod from South Africa are cheaper than the Australian product.
Our pork prices are exorbitant - but that's because most of our pork is exported overseas. Our cheapest bacon is fatty and lesser quality imported bacon. We can buy Australian bacon but because it's a prized 'export' product we buy it at a premium price!
I created this blog to talk about my home region. I've used many images, including archival images but mostly I've used my own images.
3 comments:
I always hear how expensive food products are there; how can people afford to eat at those prices? and I thought our prices were crazy here in Canada !
In Australia we do not subsidise our growers, unlike Europe, and 'cos there are only two major supermarket lines - Coles and Woolworths (IGA and Aldi as minor players) their buyers buy at the farm gate with a "take it or leave it" attitude to the growers, forcing down the growers price and then marking up their retail prices all the time while justifying this with'transportation, storage and logistics infra-structure' costs!
I imagine 'trade' has a lot to do with it, too.
Just like all Chinese goods and such that are so cheap (in more ways than one).
Sounds like you need more farmer's markets! We're headed to the one in Raleigh tomorrow. (Almost a 3 hour drive, but usually worth it.)
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