[nosse]

If I don't have the time to really look into things, I go with the cheapest too.

- You usually have exactly the quality you paid for, so no surprises here.

- It's often more ecological. If factory A can produce more stuff with same money than factory B, they must be doing something right. Another way to look at this would be: if you have to make shovels dirt cheap, you can't use barrels of oil/shovel, because you would have to pay for that oil.

I really cannot prove this cheap is ecological, but I've noticed that this holds true in plastic Christmas-trees, cucumbers and majority of unprocessed meat products. Chicken production should cause only 1/5 of the problems that beef production. Surprise, surprise chicken also cost's 1/5.

[greedo]

Where I live, ground chuck goes for $4/lb, and chicken breasts go for $7/lb. Not sure what the cost per pound of an entire steer versus an entire chicken, but I don't see the same price variance that you're writing about.

Also, the ecological impact might be because Crappy Factory A is manufacturing cheap shovels and dumping their toxic waste in a local river, while Factory B has to charge more because it's following industry standards and using a reputable waste handler.

Or Crappy Factory A might be using underage employees, or dumping product to eliminate its competition.

Drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on pricing is dangerous.

[nosse]

"Drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on pricing is dangerous." I completely agree. But in my opinion, drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on reputation is as dangerous. And it takes time to get that reputation info. Time I don't have many times.

Only reliable way to have good conclusions about manufacturers is to examine their business throughly. That's obviously just impossible in most cases.

PS. Chicken breast is expensive here too. I buy whole legs.