[fsckboy]

>that they export the junk cheese to the US and keep the good stuff

people who produce and sell stuff follow profit maximization. Colombia sells its best coffee on the export market because there it will command the highest prices. The people who live in wine growing regions (agricultural) do not have the disposable income to afford expensive wines, so they are shipped to cities. Great croissants are sold locally because they don't last long being shipped. It's not more than profit maximization.

[cjs_ac]

Swiss consumers are wealthier than American consumers.

[carlosjobim]

Averages and means are of no significance in this equation. What matters is which market has the most customers who can afford your product.

Luxury goods are sold worldwide even to hell hole countries, because there's people there who can afford them.

[cjs_ac]

We're talking about cheese. To American consumers, this is luxury, imported cheese, only available from specialist retailers. To Swiss consumers, it's everyday cheese sold in ordinary supermarkets.

[carlosjobim]

You missed my first sentence. If there are 9 million Swiss consumers who are potential customers and 40 million Americans who are, then it doesn't matter if the average Swiss is richer than the average American.

Average and means have no significance in this matter. There are more Americans who can afford cheese from Switzerland than there are Swiss people.

[cjs_ac]

Are there sufficiently many Americans shopping in any individual supermarket who are willing to pay for that cheese for it to be worth that supermarket stocking that cheese? Distribution to retailers is not a simple problem in the food industry.

[carlosjobim]

I would suppose so. Supermarkets in both Europe and America have made gigantic improvements in just the last 7 years in variety and quality of products they offer. Most people haven't noticed since it's a constant and accumulating process, but you find much more stuff today in the supermarket than what you used to. And the reason is partly from greatly improved logistics and distribution.

[crote]

In Switzerland, "Swiss cheese" is just cheese. It's only a luxury product in the US because it has to be shipped to a different continent.

So who can afford it? In Switzerland, everyone.

[carlosjobim]

There are more Americans who can afford Swiss cheese than there are Swiss people alive. If you are manufacturing food, then you have to calculate that each human only has one belly.

[baxtr]

What you are describing holds true only if the buyer values the higher quality, which is true for coffee.

But if you can send the cheap stuff and get the same price why not do that and keep the high quality items for the local market?

Southern Europeans export their tasteless tomatoes to Northern Europe because people there don’t value tasty tomatoes that much. So southern Europeans keep the good vegetables for themselves.

[mschuster91]

> Southern Europeans export their tasteless tomatoes to Northern Europe because people there don’t value tasty tomatoes that much. So southern Europeans keep the good vegetables for themselves.

It's the other way around. The problem is that mass-market tomato varieties have been selected and bred for a long shelf life - which led to them losing taste because breeders didn't care about taste, only about durability [1]. And the flavors aren't the only thing that went away, the second breeding focus on yield led to tomatoes that don't have as much sugar any more because there's only so much sugar a single plant can make.

So if you want to ship tomatoes to Nothern European countries that actually last a few days of display time on the shelf before going bad, you'll want to breed varieties with less taste. If you were to ship tasty tomatoes, probably half the shipment would go bad before ever reaching the store.

And that's not just valid for tomatoes, it's valid for all sorts of agricultural products - including meat. You're only going to get the truly good stuff if you go local and pay the surcharge for varieties and breeds that are "less efficient" to grow but yield more flavor.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/why-tomatoes-got-bla...

[baxtr]

Ok interesting!

And basically you’re saying the same as I am. If Northern Europeans would value taste enough, they’d be happy to pay double (since 50% of the shipment would go bad as you write).

[mschuster91]

You can't. Tomatoes - no matter what the 24/7/365 availability of tomatoes in supermarkets leads one to believe - are a seasonal fruit so you could only do this around summer anyway, and the price difference to account for large quantities of the shipment going bad would be way too large to compete with growhouse tomatoes. You'd need to establish and tear down supply chains just for the few months of summer, not worth it.

[fsckboy]

>What you are describing holds true only if the buyer values the higher quality, which is true for coffee.

what I describe holds true because I didn't fall into the trap you are trying to dig me out of.

I said: the sellers profit maximize. What you are saying only makes a difference in who they sell to... in order to, as I said, profit maximize.

[crote]

Fun fact: The Netherlands exports tomatoes to Spain and Italy!

Southern European summers have become too hot to grow tomatoes, so during the summer they have to be imported. The native ones are only available during the winter - when they are indeed exported back up as well.

[baxtr]

Interesting! So basically they’re moving large amounts of water back and forth!