However, once present in this cornucopia I wander around in a daze, with the same wonder that befell soviet leader Boris Yeltsin when he visited a Texas supermarket back in 1989. For research purposes, I dropped into my local Pak’nSave where I was shocked, shocked I declare, to discover 35 pre-cooked sausages on sale for $19. That’s 54c a sausage!
Raise a pig. Slaughter it. Turn the deceased animal into its constitute parts. What cannot be turned into bacon place into a mincer. Wrap the contents in processed animal intestine. Place 35 of these meat-tubes in a plastic bag and, all while keeping it chilled, ship it to the supermarket and hope it gets purchased before the Best Before Date.
The logistical miracle is incomprehensible. An unskilled teenager can work 60 minutes washing dishes at minimum wage and be given 35 pre-cooked sausages. With change. Granted, they’d prefer a Roblox voucher but you can’t eat Roblox.
Bundle this with a loaf of Pam’s White Bread, sliced, for $2.02 and round off the meal with two litres of tomato sauce for less than $7. Well. Not the entire two litres. That would be too much, but, you get the idea. The evening would be perfect with an $8 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc paired with a two-litre tub of hokey pokey ice cream for, let me price-check, $5.39.
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
The logistical miracle is incomprehensible. An unskilled teenager can work 60 minutes washing dishes at minimum wage and be given 35 pre-cooked sausages. With change. Granted, they’d prefer a Roblox voucher but you can’t eat Roblox.
Bundle this with a loaf of Pam’s White Bread, sliced, for $2.02 and round off the meal with two litres of tomato sauce for less than $7. Well. Not the entire two litres. That would be too much, but, you get the idea. The evening would be perfect with an $8 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc paired with a two-litre tub of hokey pokey ice cream for, let me price-check, $5.39.
There is no shortage of low-cost quality food; some of us just need to learn the price of a pint of milk. Photo: MARION VAN DIJK / Stuff
For variety you can pick up 400 grams of penne pasta for $1.29. That’s about four minutes of labour for our teenager. Longer if they want to add grated cheese and we are still under 20 minutes if they purchase 400 grams of Pams, pre-grated, Colby.
For variety you can pick up 400 grams of penne pasta for $1.29. That’s about four minutes of labour for our teenager. Longer if they want to add grated cheese and we are still under 20 minutes if they purchase 400 grams of Pams, pre-grated, Colby.
Delicious.
For a healthy alternative, Granny Smith apples are less than $2 a kilo, potatoes at $4 a kilo (unwashed) and, to keep regular, two whole broccoli for just $3. And yet; the Green Party claims that “one in five children live in households that run out of food.” To wit, I am forced to ask, how?
Now, OK, a month of sausages and white bread three times a day is going to grate more than the Colby but, really, unless you are unwilling to use a potato peeler no pantry should be bare.
I was prompted this week by our friends at The Green Party of Aotearoa who claim the supermarket duopoly are earning one million per day “… in excessive profits on top of a reasonable margin.” They got this from a Commerce Commission report whose numbers I have questioned previously. For perspective, last year Woolworths reported a profit, before interest and tax, of $163 million on revenue of $8 billion.
Assuming Foodstuffs are similar in size and profit the Greens are fighting an enemy that exists only in their marketing material. Awkward. This inconvenient truth has not stopped the ambition of their response to a non-existent crisis.
Their magnificent proposal is spending $2.8 billion to forcibly acquire existing supermarket infrastructure and establish KiwiMart. This is the worst economic policy since New Zealand First proposed purchasing the BNZ.
Let’s peek behind the cool-store of this KiwiMart.
Will suppliers get a better deal? The Greens claim they “…will be less reliant on just the two major supermarkets …”
Will house brands that low-income households rely on be scrapped? Let me quote their policy document; “They use store brands like Essentials and Pams to squeeze out local producers, reducing range and competition across the market.”
Will KiwiMart pay a living wage higher than teenagers currently earn?
Yes, yes and yes. The only question is the size of the annual bailout; but that is not the real question this morning.
Why, given that food in our low-cost chains is cheaper than last season’s fascinator if you are willing to cook at home and endure house-brand peanut butter, does the MP for Auckland Central believe: “There is no shortage of food in Aotearoa, but it's somehow becoming too expensive for too many New Zealanders.”?
Perhaps, like Yeltsin, Swarbrick is not in the habit of schlepping amongst hoi polloi. If your shopping experience is limited to Farro Fresh and Sabato then the category error becomes comprehendible.
Once you understand that the Greens are an antipodean repeat of The Simple Life with Ponsonby socialites in angst over the price of truffle infused olive oil the desire to seize the means of production becomes clear.
There is no shortage of low-cost quality food; some of us just need to learn the price of a pint of milk.....The full article is published HERE
For a healthy alternative, Granny Smith apples are less than $2 a kilo, potatoes at $4 a kilo (unwashed) and, to keep regular, two whole broccoli for just $3. And yet; the Green Party claims that “one in five children live in households that run out of food.” To wit, I am forced to ask, how?
Now, OK, a month of sausages and white bread three times a day is going to grate more than the Colby but, really, unless you are unwilling to use a potato peeler no pantry should be bare.
I was prompted this week by our friends at The Green Party of Aotearoa who claim the supermarket duopoly are earning one million per day “… in excessive profits on top of a reasonable margin.” They got this from a Commerce Commission report whose numbers I have questioned previously. For perspective, last year Woolworths reported a profit, before interest and tax, of $163 million on revenue of $8 billion.
Assuming Foodstuffs are similar in size and profit the Greens are fighting an enemy that exists only in their marketing material. Awkward. This inconvenient truth has not stopped the ambition of their response to a non-existent crisis.
Their magnificent proposal is spending $2.8 billion to forcibly acquire existing supermarket infrastructure and establish KiwiMart. This is the worst economic policy since New Zealand First proposed purchasing the BNZ.
Let’s peek behind the cool-store of this KiwiMart.
Will suppliers get a better deal? The Greens claim they “…will be less reliant on just the two major supermarkets …”
Will house brands that low-income households rely on be scrapped? Let me quote their policy document; “They use store brands like Essentials and Pams to squeeze out local producers, reducing range and competition across the market.”
Will KiwiMart pay a living wage higher than teenagers currently earn?
Yes, yes and yes. The only question is the size of the annual bailout; but that is not the real question this morning.
Why, given that food in our low-cost chains is cheaper than last season’s fascinator if you are willing to cook at home and endure house-brand peanut butter, does the MP for Auckland Central believe: “There is no shortage of food in Aotearoa, but it's somehow becoming too expensive for too many New Zealanders.”?
Perhaps, like Yeltsin, Swarbrick is not in the habit of schlepping amongst hoi polloi. If your shopping experience is limited to Farro Fresh and Sabato then the category error becomes comprehendible.
Once you understand that the Greens are an antipodean repeat of The Simple Life with Ponsonby socialites in angst over the price of truffle infused olive oil the desire to seize the means of production becomes clear.
There is no shortage of low-cost quality food; some of us just need to learn the price of a pint of milk.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
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