this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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It is also because of predatory business praxis. A typically thing for Aldi & co. to do is making good contracts with farmers, make them invest in an expansion, and then renegotiate the prices at a point the farmers are operate without any profit or even at loss. But since they have expanded, they can only deal with the supermarkets, who are able to buy these quantities.
Probably we just pay the hidden price through farming subsidies.
Also lower safety, health + labor standards probably. Years ago I watched a french documentary where they had gone undercover in a large German slaughterhouse to explain the price difference with France. It was almost exclusively exploited migrant workers who were doing their work with appallingly low hygienic standards, which was then contrasted with a (more expensive) modern + much cleaner french slaughterhouse. I was not surprised when there was a string of scandals with German slaughterhouses during early covid. I will never buy German meat products, which is not much of a boycot, because I can't remember the last time I've seen any for sale where I live.
Thanks for this. When I moved to France from Germany, basic meat ("Hackfleisch") was almost twice the price there and it puzzled me how this is sustainable in an open market. I guess meat quality is not visible enough to the end customer for a market to equilibrate out such differences. Are the differences regulation driven?
It's an open market, so countries can't invent subjective regulation to block competing identical eu products from coming on their market. I've wondered how this price difference is sustained and I have no clear answer either.
The only thing I could think off was that Belgians (I'm Belgian) and French people are very snobistic + chauvinistic about what we eat: origin is prominently displayed on meat and dairy, so it's probable that enough consumers are willing to pay more for perceived better quality, so that the supermarket chains keep buying local. To sustain the believe of the population in the superior quality of our local products, problems that could threaten this believe must be taken seriously.
In the Netherlands this is different: the dutch only care about the price, it's no coincidence that the dutch invented the water chicken.
A few years ago we had our latest scandal in a Belgian slaughterhouse (there's been many over the years): it had a bad reputation, some people went undercover and made footage (it was no where near as bad as a German slaughterhouse, but still ..., could have been a lot better), the footage was published, public outrage followed, inspections followed, the slaughterhouse was temporally shut down, business was lost, expansion plans scrapped, responsibles were prosecuted and ultimately received a slap on the wrist fine.
So slaughterhouses in Belgium do have problems, but scandals have consequences that the slaughterhouse management really wants to avoid, and that's why I believe that my chauvinistic belief in the superiority of Belgian/french products is warranted. 😁
Edit: the slaughterhouse scandal that I mentioned was about ill treatment of animals, not for hygienic reasons. About 8 years ago there was a case of a slaughterhouse failing inspections repeatedly over a 2 year period and they were shut down after failing to make improvements. The inspection takes hygienic and qc issues very seriously, but seems to have higher tolerance for animal cruelty than the general population.
Interesting. Yea, the snob, chauvinist argument, or from a more positive perspective a healthy habit of caring more about food quality and a willingness to pay for it as opposed to saving money for expensive cars, is also high on my list. It also changes the dynamics from competition on lowest price to competition on quality—sometimes probably allowing for much higher margins than what you could get for the same product in Germany.
I found an article from a more recent investigation, nothing has changed: https://m.novinite.com/articles/212929/Bulgarians+and+Romanians+Treated+as+Slaves+in+a+Slaughterhouse+in+Germany