Flickr user somebody 3lse chose this $4.99 package of almonds at a store in Canada “because it was the cheapest.” Going by the information on the label, the almonds, she estimates, traveled approximately 22,000 km. during processing and packaging (California to Vietnam to Canada).
Photo: somebody 3lseSo does this make you want to go locavore, since so much fuel was likely used in transporting them around the globe, and maybe they’re not the freshest almonds? Or does it support the global food economy: fuel costs are a small part of the production budget, and packaging them in Vietnam probably kept down the price.
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This is precisely the reason that I just buy bulk unpacked nuts and reduce the wated packaging and localize the packing labor to myself.
there is almost the same capital outlay required to install the packaging line in either California or Viet Nam. If process is substantially automated, the labor savings amount to peanuts. There are also increases in working capital, customs brokerage and transportation costs.
Are there substantial agricultural subsidies when shipping goods outside NAFTA? These seem the only logical “savings”.
The question is why is it so much cheaper to ship these nuts to Vietnam to be packed by a human, when there are humans perfectly able to pack them where they are grown?
Is there something intrinsic about the humans in Vietnam that allows them to pack them for so much less money than those in California? In a perfectly efficient market, wouldn’t the cost for labor in Vietnam be the same as the cost for labor in California?
The inefficiencies in the marketplace are causing us to waste for more resources than we would otherwise. Of course, those same inefficiencies allow the standard of living in the US to be so much greater than other parts of the world.
Or may be “California Almonds” is just a name of the sort of Almonds? Does not necessarily mean that the almonds came originally from California. Much like the “home made” burgers you find in RESTAURANTS
SP,
The capital outlay for a factory is likely far less in Vietnam than California. California has much stricter air quality, zoning and labor laws.
Populations centers are the enemy.
Cities are packed with people and almost zero tillable acreage.
If people from the city moved evenly across the central plains of the US, less shipping would be necessary to get the food from fields (central plains) to the people.
If people moved out of the cities, everyone could buy local and not need to package it for shipping and retail.
I think people are focused on the California to Vietman to US issue. The reality is, this is obviously a globally distributed item and the percentage of product that returns back to the States is probably very small.
The California grower likely already sells locally in bulk and to other local packagers.
Locavore is a crock.
For one thing, there’s a lot of local-source labeling but not a lot of local sourcing. Do they grow Oranges and Limes in Chicago? I think not, but here they are:
http://mikekr.blogspot.com/2009/07/safewaydominicks-locall-grown-sham.html
Second, driving a small truck to a local farmer’s market is not necessarily cheaper than shipping a railcar cross county and then using a large truck to deliver to the store.
Third, when we ate local, the winter consisted mostly of root vegetables and canned stuff. Was that really better, by any reasonable definition of “better”?