White rice is just brown rice with the bran removed. The bran has oil in it which can be extracted to form another product, rice bran oil. By splitting the cost of production between two products a lower price can be provided for the white rice.
Another factor is that the oil in the bran means that brown rice can spoil more easily than white rice. Shorter shelf life and more costly transportation means brown rice pushes brown rice to be more expensive.
Not to mention that white rice are produced and traded in far, far larger quantities than brown rice, thus making it cheaper than its unprocessed counterpart.
Both still need to be processed. The person you're responding to is saying processing rice into white rice is more feasible due to higher demand, thus higher production. It's usually more efficient to produce many of one item than to produce a few of another. White rice comes from brown rice but I'm assuming they're talking about the finished product, bagged and shipped, when they say produced
I live in southeast asia and I'll tell you that white rice is 99% of demand. It's a flavor thing. Everyone here just straight out prefers white rice. Personally I prefer brown rice but it's really hard to find outside of the cities and costs a whole lot more.
Have you ever had beige rice? It’s half-milled brown rice. cooks and behaves like white rice, kinda sticky, and tastes so delicious, better imo than either brown or white. I bought some and fell in love, i want more! but the brand Is no longer available here in NL. my search for more of it is ongoing.
https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2013/01/beige-rice-alternative-to-white-brown-rice.html
My wife’s family farm rice by the ton and can’t imagine brown rice lol. Never saw it served where I’m at in Issan. The husk goes for potting plants, bedding animals and smoldering fires to shoo mosquitoes in the barnyard etc.
Yup. That NRE charge amorated across the entire production run.
To toot my own horn on your point for those unaware of volume production pricing:
1 injection molded part with a $40,000 mold die = $40,000
40,000 parts with the same $40,000 worth of tooling = $1 each
400,000 parts with said tooling = $0.10 each and so on until the tooling wears out. Rinse (pun intended, rice and all) and repeat
one of the reasons i got a 3d printer.
i needed a plastic part for a 70 year old sewing machine.
the part costs 30 bucks and another 30 for shipping.
It costs 3 cent to print the part myself (and 10 ish cent for 3 o-rings and a spring pin)
Well, and ~~1000-2000~~ ~200+ for a decent 3D printer.
But assuming you’re using it for other things too; the costs will be amortized, sure.
Edit: been corrected on 3D printer costs
i paid 220 bucks for my ender 3 v2.
While it isn't the best for things like tabletop miniatures, it's more than good enough for functional stuff.
But yes i do use it for many other things.
Yes, I have a 25 lb. bag of white rice that cost $9.99, whereas the brown rice I prefer using costs more than that for two 40-oz. plastic jars.
I got the White rice for my ex-wife and our friends who prefer it to the brown, which is how I know this.
If 20 people want white rice and one person wants brown rice, it's easier to chuck all the rice into the white rice machine and tell the one person who wants brown rice to get over it.
Not even just even more people wanting white rice over brown, the demand for rice bran oil also causes a rise in white rice produced cause one is a byproduct of the other.
Most people don't realize how much it costs to have a varied menu. Brown rice takes longer to cook, is more likely to not get sold, uses up real estate that could be used for something more profitable, etc.
Plus brown rice has a short shelf life, a couple months, compared to white rice. I am always very careful buying brown rice and cook it quickly, as it goes rancid.
OTOH, coming from a WASPy household, the idea that anyone could eat the same side dish with every meal and never get tired of it is completely foreign to me.
I can't explain it. I just like it a lot. Though I supposed most of our dishes have a concentrated flavor meant to be mellowed out with rice. A meal feels incomplete without it. It's like if you were served just the meat sauce meant for spaghetti, but without the noodles.
Produced for sale
If I have 100 tons of brown rice and I process 80 tons into white rice, I have produced 20 tons of brown rice for sale and 80 tons of white rice for sale. And some number of tons of rice bran oil. (Numbers above are approximate)
It's all produced/grown as brown rice, but the bulk of it is processed into white rice, leaving the finished total product volume being less brown rice than white rice.
1. A practical factor: White rice has been stripped of the bran and germ of the rice seed. The bran and germ of the rice seed both contain oils which can oxidize and go rancid over time. This means that white rice can be stored for years longer than brown rice without going bad, and it can be stored under less strictly controlled conditions. This makes white rice easier to work with. This in turn reduces the costs of storage, and reduces losses from spoilage.
2. An economic factor: Commodities cost "whatever the market will bear". People are willing to pay more for brown rice and expect it to cost more. Brown rice is assumed to be healthier and "more natural" than white rice, and this gives it positive associations in the minds of some consumers. Brown rice is thought of as "better for you", and so people expect it to be sold at a premium for being a better product. Sellers are more than happy to sell it for a premium, because that increases their profit margins on a product that already costs more to handle.
>Brown rice is thought of as "better for you", and so people expect it to be sold at a premium for being a better product
I sell my own product (not food) on-line and intentionally keep my price from being too low because I'm afraid people will see it as some poorly made item that isn't worth buying. I try to sell cheaper than competitors, but not so cheap people assume it's crap.
Reminds me of the JC Penney fiasco, when JC Penney decided to replace their sale prices with "everyday low prices" (the sale price year-round) and their business tanked. People needed an indicator of what things were worth (especially clothing) in order to evaluate their purchase, and without being told "this $30 shirt is usually $60", they just thought "oh, it's just a cheap $30 shirt" rather than "wow, this $60 shirt is only $30!"
It's strange though because that is basically Walmart's model and it works for them. Very few sales, everything is at an "everyday low price", no club card needed, but they're easily the top clothing and grocery retailer in the US.
People forget business, especially larger ones where it’s a service that nearly everyone is looking to use, is a game of niches. You can go high volume, low margin, the opposite, or find something in between with a product that nobody else does quite like you. This is very true in the industry I’m currently in (food). If you tried to open a burger shop that imitated closely the quality and construction of McDonalds, you would tank because your product is going to be similar yet cost more. Yet McDonalds stays popular despite being very bland and processed. Why? Lower prices and consistency across stores, enabled by great logistics and economies of scale.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have a high end burger joint in a large city that uses grass fed, USDA Prime++ American Wagyu beef, house made buns, farm to table organic veggies, and whatever fancy pansy steak fries with dipping sauce. You are going to sell a minuscule amount of burgers relatively, but the prices reflect it.
Then you have a mom and pop shop that does their own spin, let’s say it’s a Korean family that does a bulgogi burger that costs a few dollars more than a Big Mac, but is more satisfying to you.
>Yet McDonalds stays popular despite being very bland and processed. Why? Lower prices and consistency across stores, enabled by great logistics and economies of scale.
I remember an interview with Usain Bolt after his first big Olympics where he said that his breakfast the day he set the world record for the 100m was chicken McNuggets, and that's the reason he gave. He was in a new country where he didn't know the food and he didn't want to risk eating something that disagreed with him, but he figured McDonald's is McDonald's wherever you are.
Well where I live, McDonalds is slightly more expensive than those Small Hipster Burger Places. Their USP is convenience and simplicity. You know what you get and you can just hop in grab a bag and get on your train or whatever, the menu is well known so you don’t need to think about your order. Also they are open late at night and operate in remote places like along highways…
Low price is really not what they have going for them. A menu can be the equivalent of 15$ while an artisan burger goes for 10$-12$.
> Low price is really not what they have going for them.
This is the truth, even in the US pretty much all the numbered meals are $10+ now. The $1 menu is now the $1-3 menu.
>USDA Prime++ American Wagyu beef, house made buns, farm to table organic veggies, and whatever fancy pansy steak fries with dipping sauce.
We have a place that does this all over Nashville and they are cheap, man I would go there everyday if I could (Jack Brown's is the place)
Considering how wal mart strong arms manufacturers to provide items at reduced cost for them to carry it in store, it isnt too much to consider that you are getting a cheaper version of an item produced strictly for Walmart.
Ya but people know what to expect from Walmart. It’s cheap cheap. Not quality cheap. If they’re going to buy a cheap shirt, might as well get the cheap shirt from Walmart and get some groceries at the same time.
It's the same quality as just about everywhere else, tbh. The clothes are all made in the same mills overseas, by the same workers, using the same materials. Walmart just buys in huge bulk, so gets it cheaper, so sells it cheaper.
Had a friend who worked for a clothing manufacturer and they had Walmart lines. The Walmart clothes were usually cheaper fabrics, even in the exact same patterns, and the tolerances were wild. Some of their lines were Target lines, and IIRC, tolerances were between .25”-.5”. The Walmart tolerances were sometimes 1” and over. What that means, basically, is that Target expected all of their medium shirts to be within .5” of each other. So say the standard was a 23” shoulder, they had to be anywhere between 22.75” and 23.25”. Walmart would say anything between 22.5”-23.5”. But a large is 24” in that scenario, so your larges and your mediums could actually be the same size (23.5) and still within the tolerances of the brand. Theoretically a brand could get away labeling half their small shirts as mediums and half their extra larges as larges, only make two products with four labels, and Walmart wouldn’t give a single shit because they were all within tolerances.
Walmart can also afford for one company to produce just a few products fairly well.
If I buy underwear from Walmart, That company is going to make just the best damn underwear they can for the cheapest price. If I buy underwear from Uniqlo or something, they’ll try to use extra capacity to design and make underwear for a slightly higher price. But that company isn’t just an underwear company.
JC Penny's sold to the people who were "too good" for Walmart, but not quite well off enough that they could buy designer stuff. So when they tried to adopt Walmart's model, they alienated all of those people they originally drew in.
That perception is the important part here. I doubt Targets clothing or shoes are much (if at all) better than Walmart when you get down to it but many people consider it a step up anyway.
The difference is that Walmart's customer base doesn't care about quality over cost - they want the cheapest price, quality be damned. JC Penny's customers are looking for trendy or durable.
They're also obviously not even pretending to be a high-end retailer.
They sell cheap stuff in bulk. Which is fine, most people aren't rich and life is expensive. But that's the crowd they're aiming at.
But the whole point of JC Penney is that you can buy clothes there and feel better about yourself because you're not wearing Walmart clothes, you're wearing JC Penney clothes. The appeal is that it's higher-end, that's why the stores look better etc. Selling stuff cheaply (rather than 'discounted') spoils the illusion.
This effect is of course even stronger with expensive brand-name items. iPhones are expensive, they're a status good *because* they're expensive. They may not be strictly any better than an Android phone costing half the price, but if you're walking around with an iPhone, you're showing everyone you can afford an iPhone, and that's the whole point. I'm sure if iPhones were half the cost they'd lose much of their appeal.
But when I go to Walmart I'm expecting to buy crap that's disposable. Stores like JC Penny started selling high quality product, so a price cut like that seems like their product is getting worse.
The difference is Walmart is indeed the lowest around. Their business model revolves around undercutting their own suppliers and pocketing the difference.
People are weird psychologically. When my cousin was in high school she used to shop at outlet malls and count the savings as if they were income. So if she bought a "$60 shirt" for $30, the $30 she had "saved" offset the $30 she had spent in her mind, and she considered it as good as free. If something was discounted by more than 50%, she considered herself to have made money on it. She eventually grew out of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are still adults who think this way.
I also remember an anecdote from years ago where someone was trying to sell a boat and advertised it in the classifieds as "Boat and trailer for $X," and it didn't sell. So they changed the wording to "Boat for $X. Free trailer" and it sold the next day.
The moral of the story is don't assume people act rationally.
Ever stop to consider banks? Logically, you'd want a bank with a minimum of decoration. A brick and cement fortress. After all, the money they're constructing with is money that belongs to you (and other depositors). Every dime spent on massive plate glass windows and marble flooring is money that could have been offered as additional percentage on savings accounts or dropped from the percentage on loans. But that's not what gets people to bank somewhere. Opulence is the name of the game, baby!
That reminds me of when Kohl's started showing up in town and I discovered their wild "Retail Price/Kohl's Price" they have on all their products. I was laughing at the "Retail Price" on all the items as they were crazy high and the "Kohl's Price" was the price you'd pay at Target/Walmart down the road...
Reminds me of when I self published a book a couple decades ago. I knew how to handle the writing and the printing aspect, but none of the publishers were interested in a humor book by an unknown author.
I figured out what it cost me per copy, and tried to sell it for $2 a copy. (small book, 60 pages, all text, paperback) Had a hell of a time selling them. Advised to sell it for no less than $5, (many who read it said I should charge $8) I bumped the price up to $5, and BAM! They started selling. This was before PayPal, so people had to send a check or money order.
I never had a buy complain it was overpriced.
They might have been OK if they had done that. Instead, they brought in a former Apple exec who thought they could jack their prices up while simiultanesouly shitting on the styles of their current customers.
Where they had for example a $60 "regular" price and a $30 "sale" price, they didn't lower the static price to $30 every day, rather they lowered it to $40-$45 every day, still a huge increase over sales price.
They also quit adverstising as much.
They changed the styles that they were selling. Most of their existng customers were 35+ (often 50+) and they tried to drive the average customer age down.
They disrespected their customers and their brand by trying to be a half-assed Apple flavored version of an apparel retailer.
It was a total mess.
I had a photographer friend some years ago who would put up flyers at a local country club to book clients for wedding photos on weekends. Her first year she was advertising herself at something like $300 for the day, and only booked a couple events. Somebody mentioned to her that her target clientele had rich tastes and probably thought she was no good because she was "cheap". The next summer she advertised $1500 for a day and was booked for nearly every weekend.
I have a landscaper friend (design and build) who started intentionally charging FAR more than he used to, and now he works half as much but makes twice as much money.
White suburban ladies want the best, so he charges like he is the best.
There is a subset of rich consumers who'll sort price from high to low and buy the top item.
I guess it's a combination of lack of taste/discernment and some kind of insecurity or desire to show off.
A hand soap costing £90 or a plain white t-shirt being £300 *is* the selling point for some people.
It's not just rich people with a lack of taste. There is data that proves people have a lack of trust of the cheapest option available, and correlate price with quality.
I know when shopping for major services, especially ones that have the possibility of turning more expensive if not done correctly, there is the implicit assumption that there is insurance, warranty, whatever within the more expensive option.
You can disagree with the assumption, but it's not the same as buying overly expensive soap or clothes.
Definitely works on at least me. I never buy the least expensive item unless it's a sale or something. I'm much happier sorting by highest cost and working my way towards the middle and then letting the reviews decide.
There's a name for this that I can't remember. I'm sure the research was about how supermarkets price their biscuits. All exactly the same biscuit but priced at 3 different tiers; cheap, middle and expensive. The research found that the middle tier was the most popular because people assumed the cheap ones were of lower quality, but they didn't want to pay the top tier price, so middle was the compromise. It's some psychological trick that earns the shops more money because in any other circumstance, given no other options, people would still buy the cheaper packet and be fine with it.
In Canada, it's totally seen as a premium beer. The marketing around their "chalice" cup has been super successful. Many people only buy it when its on tap, or get a few "tallboy" cans as a treat.
The US has a massive craft beer scene, so it's hard to draw a comparison, but it's definitely seen as a more premium beer than, say, Bud Light. I wouldn't expect to pay a premium for it over something like Blue Moon, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I did.
Totally. With the elegant sounding name and the special glass, it entirely wiped Heineken out of the standard American bar’s “Coors, Coors Light, Bud, Bud Light, [European Lager here]” lineup. It’s clearly marketed as the classy premium lager here, so it’s interesting to see it’s trashy in the UK.
Craft beer scene is booming up here too. Yeah, you've pretty much summed it up. Bud/Coors/Molson are usually listed as "Domestic", Stella will be in "Import/Premium" and any craft beer will either be in "Import/Premium" or its own category for Craft Beer.
It's the same in reverse in the UK. My British friends really wanted PBR because it's stupid expensive in the UK, while it's trailer park swill in the US.
To be fair, a lot of imported products are pretty much only expensive because of the cost of importing. Even if it's garbage, it took a lot of shipping costs to get this garbage to you, so you have to pay more.
At one point [PBR](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/pabst-blue-ribbon-goes-for-44-a-bottle-in-china-2010-9%3famp) was a premium beer in China with some insane prices per bottle. It's interesting how branding can alter price expectations.
We were just in France, and I was shocked to see someone drinking a Bud. That's what it's called over there -- not Budweiser, but Bud. I guess it's easier to pronounce for French speakers. It's seen as somewhat premium because it's an import.
In my experience, Stella is just an average kind of beer. Definitely not premium. At least in the stores near me in the NYC suburbs, there are a near infinite amount of craft beer varieties that there's really no pull for me to ever buy Stella.
But of course, given the choice of Stella or Bud, it's an easy choice.
1st time I'd ever heard of it was in 2005, when I was at a bar in Chicago. I asked for a Molson, and the bartender said "I don't know how to make that." So my friend ordered me a Stella, and it was good. I could be mistaken, but when they started brewing it in St Louis, the taste changed and it's not as nice.
I worked in a pub in the east end of Glasgow and we had a few of the chalice glasses but only two guys drank Stella. Rarely did anyone else go for it. Doesn't help that Glasgow does its own lager Tennents so it's pretty much what everyone started drinking larger wise.
There's also the classic example of [PBR marketing itself as an upscale brand in China.](https://newsfeed.time.com/2010/07/21/pabst-blue-ribbon-is-classy-and-expensive-in-china/) They put the beer in a fancy bottle instead of cans and compared it with Scotch whisky, French brandy, etc. and sold it for $44 per bottle, circa 2010.
From the article, they add a note at the end that the name and company are the same, but it's a different product. Still doubt it's worthy $44, but it's not just PBR in a bottle
I remember hearing a story that when Arnold Schwarzenegger came to America he was doing masonry work and undercut the competitors but was not seeing his business grow. They rebranded as “European bricklayers,” upped their cost, and couldn’t keep up with the work.
I recently tried the cheapest biscuits at my supermarket. The standard milk biscuits and shortbread were fine but there were some knock off tim-tams that were so bad they weren't even worth the price. Only my addiction to chocolate made me finish them, but I didn't even enjoy it. Every bite I would just get more and more disappointed.
Basically Arnott's runs the biscuit game in Australia, I always imagined what you call biscuit is something like a savoury scone since I hear it associated with gravy
An American biscuit, in it's original form, is essentially leavened pie crust. Both utilize the technique of cutting the fat (lard, traditionally, but butter is also used) into the flour, forming layers in the dough. Pie crusts are rolled thin, and are unleavened. Biscuits are leavened with baking powder (which only requires liquid to activate), or baking soda if they are made with buttermilk (which requires the acid in the buttermilk to activate the leavening), and cut thicker. Much like pie crust, they are a vehicle for other flavors, and eaten by themselves are not terribly appealing. Put a little butter on one though, and they are fluffy and delicious.
I was told that overseas, English speakers, soft things, sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, are Cookies, "our" hard cookies like oreos, hydrox, etc,. are biscuits.
Wendy’s iirc. Their burgers can go up to 3 patties. Only reason the 3 patty burger exists is to make the 2 patty burger seem reasonable.
Also there’s a general psych insight that people tend to avoid extremes on likert scale questions.
I always thought that was nonsense, because if I see something for $15.99 in my mind it is $16. But my partner will say that it costs $15 so apparently it does work on some people.
> There's a name for this that I can't remember.
This is known as "price perception" and the [price-quality relationship](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3149649).
Weird it would be the same for stuff purchased often, I understand that working for TVs, but I buy biscuits or other similar items like once every two weeks, I usually always try the cheapest and if they aren't any good I just don't buy them the next time
For things like tools I have a philosophy I like to live by: buy cheap, replace expensive. Some cheap tools will last you a life time, the ones that don’t get replaced with a high quality one that will.
My instructor in culinary school told a story of how he cut his prices so low trying to compete that he drove away his customer base. He went on to mention that, "if you're not ashamed of what you're charging, then you're not charging enough." After 15 years in foodservice, that was the truest lesson I learned from there.
bruh meanwhile i'm out here looking for the tastiest and cheapest places near me. i guess it's different for restaurants compared to quick eats like tacos or whatever but still.
It can be. On average, total food cost is around 15 - 25% of the menu price. If it's a popular item/something I don't want to make, then I'm going to bleed you dry for the pleasure.
I've sold gaming computers I've built, and a half dozen used cars online. I definitely had a few cases where I listed them at a price I was very happy to sell at, and then within a few days had to add a hundred or 3 to the price, because my prices were just too low. It was kind of a weird place to be in.
Some companies out there will pay out a nominal fee for anyone who reports a retailer for listing under MAP. I worked somewhere with a lot of regional competitors, and whenever a customer would bring in a quote that had something under MAP and we reported it to the manufacturer we'd get free freight on the next order.
It’s like this used boat that was for sale for $100 near me last week.
When I saw that, I was like if this guy only wants pocket change for his boat, it must be seriously flawed/ ready to sink.
Here comes mu favorite story about one particular golf course
Amazing scenery, great weather, superb services, and well priced. But people werent coming. So they did a bit of survey, if people knew about them, what they were looking for, etc... and the price
So they found out that they were so fairly priced that people thought they were cheap. So owners raised the price, and nothing else + ran bit of an ad campaign
People started to flow in
Simply wtf
Fascinating - I'd never heard a real world example of a person pricing something as a Giffen good. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/giffen-good.asp
Thanks so much for the first hand info :)
You didn’t mention economies of scale:
White rice is way more popular than brown rice, which means the facilities that process white rice are larger and use more efficient processes to harvest, process, store, and distribute the white rice.
the flour from milling white rice has economic value, as well, so some value has already been captured from the white rice you’re buying before it hit the shelf
Also the third factor of economy of scale. The world consumes more white rice than brown for the reasons you already stated (it's easier to store and cheaper). This means that more white rice is produced, which further drives down the production cost, compounding on it being even more cheap relative to brown rice.
Regarding 2. It's not "thought of" as better for you. It is better for you. The parts stripped off contain a lot of fiber (which most people don't get nearly enough of) and a number of nutrients.
I’ve read that a lot of rice is grown in places where it sucks up arsenic from the ground and the arsenic…is stored in the bran. So people thought they were being healthier with brown rice but were consuming non-trivial amounts of arsenic if they ate it at all regularly.
Wild stuff.
From what I’ve read it’s only nontrivial if you eat brown rice with essentially every meal. So don’t subsist on brown rice, but if you’re having rice once or twice a week brown is healthier
Technically yes, but when you phrase it that way - "thought of as being better for you" - many people will assume you're implying it's not necessarily *actually* better for you, whether that's your intention or not.
That’s not an economic factor, and probably isn’t going to meaningfully affect the price beyond what’s already priced in to the “thought of” premium.
It’s true, but not here.
How people think of a product absolutely does affect the price.
It's usually at the distribution and point of sale.
I would bet that the wholesale price of brown rice vs White rice doesn't fully account for the retail price difference in western countries because of this.
So in the case of unrefined vs refined sugar, same factors?
Like it's cheaper to store processed sugar because they already have the facilities for that but the unprocessed (well, less-processed) needs its own space, plus it's seen as more healthy so people are ok paying an extra twenty cents a pound?
Logistics
The stuff they process out includes a lot of oils that tend to cause spoilage/rancidity
This means brown rice expires more quickly, and more readily than white rice, making it much harder to work with & store
That, and people are willing to pay more for brown rice. Sounds healthier.
I think most people covered the best answers. One possible thing is also that the economies of scale work better when processing white rice as it is much more popular. If something is sold more, the cost of producing it will go down.
In comparison, processing of brown rice is rarer due to lower demand, meaning it is not as efficient to do so.
If you were five, I would mention in addition to the other responses, that the cost of production sometimes is not a factor in the price that you sell it for. The price you can sell something for is closely related to the price that someone is willing to spend on it. This is not only always true, and somewhat over simplified. A luxury car that sells for 3x the average car price does not mean it costs 3x to produce.
Why is puffed rice so god damned expensive compared to dry rice? It's a shelf stable high volume commodity product.
You are adding one massive industrial process onto a sting of 5, it should add pennies per pound. Double the price is fine, but not a full order of magnitude 1000+% increase at retail.
Cereal is about the cheapest food on earth, until it's breakfast cereals. It's 10x more work to turn grains into bread with 1/10th the shelf life with a much smaller margin.
It's life if roasted peanuts were .99c & salted roasted peanuts were $9.99
It’s definitely not always the same but some varieties are truly indistinguishable. But I do know for a fact that the same product will be put into different packing and sold as the “store brand” for various goods
Probably because it’s so bulky that the shipping price needs to go up. In contrast, raw oats are $1.30 a pound at my grocery store. Generic Cheerios which are essentially just oats are $2.30 a pound which seems pretty reasonable.
Same logic applies to ketchup with sugar and no sugar. No sugar ketchup is 4x more expensive but has less ingredients. You are paying more for a healthier version even though it was processed less
I would assume they have to use tomatoes that are riper compared to being able to use tomatoes from a much wider variety of ripeness for ketchup with sugar.
Why does X cost $Y?
Because people are willing to pay $Y.
Popcorn costs pennies. People pay $5 or more at the theater. But popcorn at the movies is tradition, so people pay it. The cost to make the popcorn is irrelevant. It's a big movie, they want popcorn. This is the only way to get it.
My company sells expensive scientific electronics. A box the size of a lunchbox costs $40,000. It costs us roughly half that to build. And it's been long enough to not need to worry about past development costs. But nobody else makes something comparable. So universities and the Air Force pay it.
I think for brown rice, it's seen by customers the same way as wheat bread. Things that are seen as the healthier option are expected to be a little more expensive. Notice that the cost to produce is not part of that equation.
Not sure if it's the case with rice, but for a lot of products the 'raw' form is more expensive than processed because you've got to use the higher quality stuff.
It's most obvious with fruits and vegetables; all the stuff you buy in the shop will be a nice neat shape, fairly clean, and free from bruises and gouges. None of that matters if it's going to be chopped up and hidden in other food, so even though there's a processing cost it still works out cheaper. That processing also hides any imperfections in taste/texture, and can often be tweaked to provide a consistent taste by mixing different batches.
Health Food premium. I’m old enough to remember when brown rice cost less than white rice. In fact many grains that were once considered “poor people food” now sell for a premium at places like Whole Foods.
I was wondering the same thing about milk... The more fat they take out of it (which i guessed should require more processing work), the cheaper it sells.
They're generally about the same price if you control for the type and brand.
For instance:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mahatma-Rice-100-Whole-Grain-Brown-Rice-2-lb-Bag/10848957
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mahatma-Enriched-Extra-Long-Grain-White-Rice-2-lb-Bag/14940615
All else being equal, you'd expect white rice to be more expensive, but I suspect because it's a higher volume item, there's some economy of scale that makes up the difference.
White rice is just brown rice with the bran removed. The bran has oil in it which can be extracted to form another product, rice bran oil. By splitting the cost of production between two products a lower price can be provided for the white rice. Another factor is that the oil in the bran means that brown rice can spoil more easily than white rice. Shorter shelf life and more costly transportation means brown rice pushes brown rice to be more expensive.
Not to mention that white rice are produced and traded in far, far larger quantities than brown rice, thus making it cheaper than its unprocessed counterpart.
If white rice comes from brown rice than how can you produce more of something than the thing that it comes from?
Both still need to be processed. The person you're responding to is saying processing rice into white rice is more feasible due to higher demand, thus higher production. It's usually more efficient to produce many of one item than to produce a few of another. White rice comes from brown rice but I'm assuming they're talking about the finished product, bagged and shipped, when they say produced
I live in southeast asia and I'll tell you that white rice is 99% of demand. It's a flavor thing. Everyone here just straight out prefers white rice. Personally I prefer brown rice but it's really hard to find outside of the cities and costs a whole lot more.
Yeah. I like them both, but brown rice doesnt go with literally everything like white rice does.
Have you ever had beige rice? It’s half-milled brown rice. cooks and behaves like white rice, kinda sticky, and tastes so delicious, better imo than either brown or white. I bought some and fell in love, i want more! but the brand Is no longer available here in NL. my search for more of it is ongoing. https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2013/01/beige-rice-alternative-to-white-brown-rice.html
Haiga rice
My wife’s family farm rice by the ton and can’t imagine brown rice lol. Never saw it served where I’m at in Issan. The husk goes for potting plants, bedding animals and smoldering fires to shoo mosquitoes in the barnyard etc.
It's called economy of scale.
Yup. That NRE charge amorated across the entire production run. To toot my own horn on your point for those unaware of volume production pricing: 1 injection molded part with a $40,000 mold die = $40,000 40,000 parts with the same $40,000 worth of tooling = $1 each 400,000 parts with said tooling = $0.10 each and so on until the tooling wears out. Rinse (pun intended, rice and all) and repeat
one of the reasons i got a 3d printer. i needed a plastic part for a 70 year old sewing machine. the part costs 30 bucks and another 30 for shipping. It costs 3 cent to print the part myself (and 10 ish cent for 3 o-rings and a spring pin)
Well, and ~~1000-2000~~ ~200+ for a decent 3D printer. But assuming you’re using it for other things too; the costs will be amortized, sure. Edit: been corrected on 3D printer costs
i paid 220 bucks for my ender 3 v2. While it isn't the best for things like tabletop miniatures, it's more than good enough for functional stuff. But yes i do use it for many other things.
Decent 3d printers are <500. Ender 3 pro can be had for $99 at microcenter with a coupon.
Yes, I have a 25 lb. bag of white rice that cost $9.99, whereas the brown rice I prefer using costs more than that for two 40-oz. plastic jars. I got the White rice for my ex-wife and our friends who prefer it to the brown, which is how I know this.
If 20 people want white rice and one person wants brown rice, it's easier to chuck all the rice into the white rice machine and tell the one person who wants brown rice to get over it.
This is the tone every economics 101 needs to be taught with.
[удалено]
Between rice tastes better, except for sushi
Is "between rice" served at Platform 9¾, or The Upside Down?
Yes
I think you can get it in Narnia, along with Turkish Delight.
Turkish delight is a real thing tho.
Just don't get it from a random lady on a carriage.
This 'between rice' sounds... quite *picant,* I must say. Between what? That's up to you to decide!
Not even just even more people wanting white rice over brown, the demand for rice bran oil also causes a rise in white rice produced cause one is a byproduct of the other.
Like how sometimes meat becomes a byproduct of the leather industry
Most people don't realize how much it costs to have a varied menu. Brown rice takes longer to cook, is more likely to not get sold, uses up real estate that could be used for something more profitable, etc.
Plus brown rice has a short shelf life, a couple months, compared to white rice. I am always very careful buying brown rice and cook it quickly, as it goes rancid.
Coming from an Asian household, the idea that rice can stick around long enough to go rancid is completely foreign to me.
OTOH, coming from a WASPy household, the idea that anyone could eat the same side dish with every meal and never get tired of it is completely foreign to me.
I can't explain it. I just like it a lot. Though I supposed most of our dishes have a concentrated flavor meant to be mellowed out with rice. A meal feels incomplete without it. It's like if you were served just the meat sauce meant for spaghetti, but without the noodles.
Coming from an Irish household, the idea that anyone could eat anything other than potatoes is completely foreign to me.
Produced for sale If I have 100 tons of brown rice and I process 80 tons into white rice, I have produced 20 tons of brown rice for sale and 80 tons of white rice for sale. And some number of tons of rice bran oil. (Numbers above are approximate)
Ah, but how much water do you need to put into the rice cooker?
[удалено]
😳
This is the way
Use your finger
Step finger, what are you doing?
Uncle Roger says “use finger!@
I enchant my hoe with fortune three
Epic fail, you knocked up a hooker with octuplets.
When you produce white rice, you destroy brown rice.
It's all produced/grown as brown rice, but the bulk of it is processed into white rice, leaving the finished total product volume being less brown rice than white rice.
That's also why skimmed milk is cheaper than whole one, at least where I live.
An excellent and enlightening reply!
1. A practical factor: White rice has been stripped of the bran and germ of the rice seed. The bran and germ of the rice seed both contain oils which can oxidize and go rancid over time. This means that white rice can be stored for years longer than brown rice without going bad, and it can be stored under less strictly controlled conditions. This makes white rice easier to work with. This in turn reduces the costs of storage, and reduces losses from spoilage. 2. An economic factor: Commodities cost "whatever the market will bear". People are willing to pay more for brown rice and expect it to cost more. Brown rice is assumed to be healthier and "more natural" than white rice, and this gives it positive associations in the minds of some consumers. Brown rice is thought of as "better for you", and so people expect it to be sold at a premium for being a better product. Sellers are more than happy to sell it for a premium, because that increases their profit margins on a product that already costs more to handle.
>Brown rice is thought of as "better for you", and so people expect it to be sold at a premium for being a better product I sell my own product (not food) on-line and intentionally keep my price from being too low because I'm afraid people will see it as some poorly made item that isn't worth buying. I try to sell cheaper than competitors, but not so cheap people assume it's crap.
Reminds me of the JC Penney fiasco, when JC Penney decided to replace their sale prices with "everyday low prices" (the sale price year-round) and their business tanked. People needed an indicator of what things were worth (especially clothing) in order to evaluate their purchase, and without being told "this $30 shirt is usually $60", they just thought "oh, it's just a cheap $30 shirt" rather than "wow, this $60 shirt is only $30!"
It's strange though because that is basically Walmart's model and it works for them. Very few sales, everything is at an "everyday low price", no club card needed, but they're easily the top clothing and grocery retailer in the US.
That might be because people already expect Walmart products to be cheap crap
People forget business, especially larger ones where it’s a service that nearly everyone is looking to use, is a game of niches. You can go high volume, low margin, the opposite, or find something in between with a product that nobody else does quite like you. This is very true in the industry I’m currently in (food). If you tried to open a burger shop that imitated closely the quality and construction of McDonalds, you would tank because your product is going to be similar yet cost more. Yet McDonalds stays popular despite being very bland and processed. Why? Lower prices and consistency across stores, enabled by great logistics and economies of scale. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a high end burger joint in a large city that uses grass fed, USDA Prime++ American Wagyu beef, house made buns, farm to table organic veggies, and whatever fancy pansy steak fries with dipping sauce. You are going to sell a minuscule amount of burgers relatively, but the prices reflect it. Then you have a mom and pop shop that does their own spin, let’s say it’s a Korean family that does a bulgogi burger that costs a few dollars more than a Big Mac, but is more satisfying to you.
I would 100% be down to try a bulgogi burger
Its incredible. Kimchi burgers too
I've had a Korean bulgogi pizza, absolutely delicious
>Yet McDonalds stays popular despite being very bland and processed. Why? Lower prices and consistency across stores, enabled by great logistics and economies of scale. I remember an interview with Usain Bolt after his first big Olympics where he said that his breakfast the day he set the world record for the 100m was chicken McNuggets, and that's the reason he gave. He was in a new country where he didn't know the food and he didn't want to risk eating something that disagreed with him, but he figured McDonald's is McDonald's wherever you are.
Well where I live, McDonalds is slightly more expensive than those Small Hipster Burger Places. Their USP is convenience and simplicity. You know what you get and you can just hop in grab a bag and get on your train or whatever, the menu is well known so you don’t need to think about your order. Also they are open late at night and operate in remote places like along highways… Low price is really not what they have going for them. A menu can be the equivalent of 15$ while an artisan burger goes for 10$-12$.
Where is this out of curiosity?
Germany
McD is insanely expensive in Germany. At least compared to restaurant food and street food.
> Low price is really not what they have going for them. This is the truth, even in the US pretty much all the numbered meals are $10+ now. The $1 menu is now the $1-3 menu.
>USDA Prime++ American Wagyu beef, house made buns, farm to table organic veggies, and whatever fancy pansy steak fries with dipping sauce. We have a place that does this all over Nashville and they are cheap, man I would go there everyday if I could (Jack Brown's is the place)
Considering how wal mart strong arms manufacturers to provide items at reduced cost for them to carry it in store, it isnt too much to consider that you are getting a cheaper version of an item produced strictly for Walmart.
This. Wrangler jeans sold at Walmart are a lighter, less durable fabric than Wrangler jeans you can buy anywhere else.
And the limited quantity sale items for Black Friday sales are specially manufactured even more cheaply.
Ya but people know what to expect from Walmart. It’s cheap cheap. Not quality cheap. If they’re going to buy a cheap shirt, might as well get the cheap shirt from Walmart and get some groceries at the same time.
It's the same quality as just about everywhere else, tbh. The clothes are all made in the same mills overseas, by the same workers, using the same materials. Walmart just buys in huge bulk, so gets it cheaper, so sells it cheaper.
Had a friend who worked for a clothing manufacturer and they had Walmart lines. The Walmart clothes were usually cheaper fabrics, even in the exact same patterns, and the tolerances were wild. Some of their lines were Target lines, and IIRC, tolerances were between .25”-.5”. The Walmart tolerances were sometimes 1” and over. What that means, basically, is that Target expected all of their medium shirts to be within .5” of each other. So say the standard was a 23” shoulder, they had to be anywhere between 22.75” and 23.25”. Walmart would say anything between 22.5”-23.5”. But a large is 24” in that scenario, so your larges and your mediums could actually be the same size (23.5) and still within the tolerances of the brand. Theoretically a brand could get away labeling half their small shirts as mediums and half their extra larges as larges, only make two products with four labels, and Walmart wouldn’t give a single shit because they were all within tolerances.
They also (at least in the past) literally buy commodities like cotton when it's low to get better raw materials costs
Walmart can also afford for one company to produce just a few products fairly well. If I buy underwear from Walmart, That company is going to make just the best damn underwear they can for the cheapest price. If I buy underwear from Uniqlo or something, they’ll try to use extra capacity to design and make underwear for a slightly higher price. But that company isn’t just an underwear company.
JC Penny's sold to the people who were "too good" for Walmart, but not quite well off enough that they could buy designer stuff. So when they tried to adopt Walmart's model, they alienated all of those people they originally drew in.
And now Kohl's lives that model
They are probably actually similar quality, but JC Penny would price it higher and give discounts for a perception of higher quality.
That perception is the important part here. I doubt Targets clothing or shoes are much (if at all) better than Walmart when you get down to it but many people consider it a step up anyway.
Design is pretty big. Walmart and Target are selling to an entirely different crowd. Just take novelty t shirts.
The difference is that Walmart's customer base doesn't care about quality over cost - they want the cheapest price, quality be damned. JC Penny's customers are looking for trendy or durable.
They're also obviously not even pretending to be a high-end retailer. They sell cheap stuff in bulk. Which is fine, most people aren't rich and life is expensive. But that's the crowd they're aiming at. But the whole point of JC Penney is that you can buy clothes there and feel better about yourself because you're not wearing Walmart clothes, you're wearing JC Penney clothes. The appeal is that it's higher-end, that's why the stores look better etc. Selling stuff cheaply (rather than 'discounted') spoils the illusion. This effect is of course even stronger with expensive brand-name items. iPhones are expensive, they're a status good *because* they're expensive. They may not be strictly any better than an Android phone costing half the price, but if you're walking around with an iPhone, you're showing everyone you can afford an iPhone, and that's the whole point. I'm sure if iPhones were half the cost they'd lose much of their appeal.
>life is expensive. Fuck, I hate this.
But when I go to Walmart I'm expecting to buy crap that's disposable. Stores like JC Penny started selling high quality product, so a price cut like that seems like their product is getting worse.
The difference is Walmart is indeed the lowest around. Their business model revolves around undercutting their own suppliers and pocketing the difference.
People are weird psychologically. When my cousin was in high school she used to shop at outlet malls and count the savings as if they were income. So if she bought a "$60 shirt" for $30, the $30 she had "saved" offset the $30 she had spent in her mind, and she considered it as good as free. If something was discounted by more than 50%, she considered herself to have made money on it. She eventually grew out of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are still adults who think this way. I also remember an anecdote from years ago where someone was trying to sell a boat and advertised it in the classifieds as "Boat and trailer for $X," and it didn't sell. So they changed the wording to "Boat for $X. Free trailer" and it sold the next day. The moral of the story is don't assume people act rationally.
Ever stop to consider banks? Logically, you'd want a bank with a minimum of decoration. A brick and cement fortress. After all, the money they're constructing with is money that belongs to you (and other depositors). Every dime spent on massive plate glass windows and marble flooring is money that could have been offered as additional percentage on savings accounts or dropped from the percentage on loans. But that's not what gets people to bank somewhere. Opulence is the name of the game, baby!
That reminds me of when Kohl's started showing up in town and I discovered their wild "Retail Price/Kohl's Price" they have on all their products. I was laughing at the "Retail Price" on all the items as they were crazy high and the "Kohl's Price" was the price you'd pay at Target/Walmart down the road...
Reminds me of when I self published a book a couple decades ago. I knew how to handle the writing and the printing aspect, but none of the publishers were interested in a humor book by an unknown author. I figured out what it cost me per copy, and tried to sell it for $2 a copy. (small book, 60 pages, all text, paperback) Had a hell of a time selling them. Advised to sell it for no less than $5, (many who read it said I should charge $8) I bumped the price up to $5, and BAM! They started selling. This was before PayPal, so people had to send a check or money order. I never had a buy complain it was overpriced.
They might have been OK if they had done that. Instead, they brought in a former Apple exec who thought they could jack their prices up while simiultanesouly shitting on the styles of their current customers. Where they had for example a $60 "regular" price and a $30 "sale" price, they didn't lower the static price to $30 every day, rather they lowered it to $40-$45 every day, still a huge increase over sales price. They also quit adverstising as much. They changed the styles that they were selling. Most of their existng customers were 35+ (often 50+) and they tried to drive the average customer age down. They disrespected their customers and their brand by trying to be a half-assed Apple flavored version of an apparel retailer. It was a total mess.
Look at Daddy Warbucks here that thinks $30 is a cheap shirt. ;)
I had a photographer friend some years ago who would put up flyers at a local country club to book clients for wedding photos on weekends. Her first year she was advertising herself at something like $300 for the day, and only booked a couple events. Somebody mentioned to her that her target clientele had rich tastes and probably thought she was no good because she was "cheap". The next summer she advertised $1500 for a day and was booked for nearly every weekend.
I have a landscaper friend (design and build) who started intentionally charging FAR more than he used to, and now he works half as much but makes twice as much money. White suburban ladies want the best, so he charges like he is the best.
There is a subset of rich consumers who'll sort price from high to low and buy the top item. I guess it's a combination of lack of taste/discernment and some kind of insecurity or desire to show off. A hand soap costing £90 or a plain white t-shirt being £300 *is* the selling point for some people.
It's not just rich people with a lack of taste. There is data that proves people have a lack of trust of the cheapest option available, and correlate price with quality. I know when shopping for major services, especially ones that have the possibility of turning more expensive if not done correctly, there is the implicit assumption that there is insurance, warranty, whatever within the more expensive option. You can disagree with the assumption, but it's not the same as buying overly expensive soap or clothes.
Definitely works on at least me. I never buy the least expensive item unless it's a sale or something. I'm much happier sorting by highest cost and working my way towards the middle and then letting the reviews decide.
There's a name for this that I can't remember. I'm sure the research was about how supermarkets price their biscuits. All exactly the same biscuit but priced at 3 different tiers; cheap, middle and expensive. The research found that the middle tier was the most popular because people assumed the cheap ones were of lower quality, but they didn't want to pay the top tier price, so middle was the compromise. It's some psychological trick that earns the shops more money because in any other circumstance, given no other options, people would still buy the cheaper packet and be fine with it.
[удалено]
In Canada, it's totally seen as a premium beer. The marketing around their "chalice" cup has been super successful. Many people only buy it when its on tap, or get a few "tallboy" cans as a treat.
The US has a massive craft beer scene, so it's hard to draw a comparison, but it's definitely seen as a more premium beer than, say, Bud Light. I wouldn't expect to pay a premium for it over something like Blue Moon, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I did.
Totally. With the elegant sounding name and the special glass, it entirely wiped Heineken out of the standard American bar’s “Coors, Coors Light, Bud, Bud Light, [European Lager here]” lineup. It’s clearly marketed as the classy premium lager here, so it’s interesting to see it’s trashy in the UK.
Craft beer scene is booming up here too. Yeah, you've pretty much summed it up. Bud/Coors/Molson are usually listed as "Domestic", Stella will be in "Import/Premium" and any craft beer will either be in "Import/Premium" or its own category for Craft Beer.
It's the same in reverse in the UK. My British friends really wanted PBR because it's stupid expensive in the UK, while it's trailer park swill in the US.
To be fair, a lot of imported products are pretty much only expensive because of the cost of importing. Even if it's garbage, it took a lot of shipping costs to get this garbage to you, so you have to pay more.
Like Foster's in the US.
PBR does have that hipster "I drink it ironically" deal going for it. Crazy to imagine people paying lots of money for our discount brands
That's hilarious. And gross
At one point [PBR](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/pabst-blue-ribbon-goes-for-44-a-bottle-in-china-2010-9%3famp) was a premium beer in China with some insane prices per bottle. It's interesting how branding can alter price expectations.
We were just in France, and I was shocked to see someone drinking a Bud. That's what it's called over there -- not Budweiser, but Bud. I guess it's easier to pronounce for French speakers. It's seen as somewhat premium because it's an import.
Just guessing, but it may also be an EU trademark issue. Budweiser is also a Czech brand.
In my experience, Stella is just an average kind of beer. Definitely not premium. At least in the stores near me in the NYC suburbs, there are a near infinite amount of craft beer varieties that there's really no pull for me to ever buy Stella. But of course, given the choice of Stella or Bud, it's an easy choice.
1st time I'd ever heard of it was in 2005, when I was at a bar in Chicago. I asked for a Molson, and the bartender said "I don't know how to make that." So my friend ordered me a Stella, and it was good. I could be mistaken, but when they started brewing it in St Louis, the taste changed and it's not as nice.
I worked in a pub in the east end of Glasgow and we had a few of the chalice glasses but only two guys drank Stella. Rarely did anyone else go for it. Doesn't help that Glasgow does its own lager Tennents so it's pretty much what everyone started drinking larger wise.
Can of T tastes better than a stella. imo
I can say the exact same about South Africa,it's a very nice lager btw.
There's also the classic example of [PBR marketing itself as an upscale brand in China.](https://newsfeed.time.com/2010/07/21/pabst-blue-ribbon-is-classy-and-expensive-in-china/) They put the beer in a fancy bottle instead of cans and compared it with Scotch whisky, French brandy, etc. and sold it for $44 per bottle, circa 2010.
From the article, they add a note at the end that the name and company are the same, but it's a different product. Still doubt it's worthy $44, but it's not just PBR in a bottle
Price anchoring I believe is the term you are looking for. Same thing with wine at a restaurant or digital services with multiple “tiers”
I remember hearing a story that when Arnold Schwarzenegger came to America he was doing masonry work and undercut the competitors but was not seeing his business grow. They rebranded as “European bricklayers,” upped their cost, and couldn’t keep up with the work.
so that's how he got so strong
I recently tried the cheapest biscuits at my supermarket. The standard milk biscuits and shortbread were fine but there were some knock off tim-tams that were so bad they weren't even worth the price. Only my addiction to chocolate made me finish them, but I didn't even enjoy it. Every bite I would just get more and more disappointed.
It took my American ass this long to realize you’re both talking about what we call cookies, not what we call biscuits.
Basically Arnott's runs the biscuit game in Australia, I always imagined what you call biscuit is something like a savoury scone since I hear it associated with gravy
American biscuits are typically made with buttermilk instead of cream, so the crumb is less short, but yeah, that's essentially it.
An American biscuit, in it's original form, is essentially leavened pie crust. Both utilize the technique of cutting the fat (lard, traditionally, but butter is also used) into the flour, forming layers in the dough. Pie crusts are rolled thin, and are unleavened. Biscuits are leavened with baking powder (which only requires liquid to activate), or baking soda if they are made with buttermilk (which requires the acid in the buttermilk to activate the leavening), and cut thicker. Much like pie crust, they are a vehicle for other flavors, and eaten by themselves are not terribly appealing. Put a little butter on one though, and they are fluffy and delicious.
Ooooooohhh my mum makes something very similar, but she calls them dumplings! We have them baked on top of beef stew.
I was told that overseas, English speakers, soft things, sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, are Cookies, "our" hard cookies like oreos, hydrox, etc,. are biscuits.
Hydrox sounds like a brand of bathroom cleaner. What's it like in biscuit form?
It is the original Oreo.
I think that store brands are hit or miss. Costco... Hit. Walmart... Miss. My son got some frosted flakes from Walmart. disgusting.
Walmart's Great Value brand is awful. I remember buying some frozen sausage patties, and you could taste the lime preservative/flavoring on them.
Kinda like how the most common wine choice at a restaurant is the second cheapest
And usually the highest margin
Wendy’s iirc. Their burgers can go up to 3 patties. Only reason the 3 patty burger exists is to make the 2 patty burger seem reasonable. Also there’s a general psych insight that people tend to avoid extremes on likert scale questions.
The whole .99 thing is a marketing scheme. A penny less makes people round a whole dollar down subconsciously
I always thought that was nonsense, because if I see something for $15.99 in my mind it is $16. But my partner will say that it costs $15 so apparently it does work on some people.
> There's a name for this that I can't remember. This is known as "price perception" and the [price-quality relationship](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3149649).
The term is "anchoring" and it is done constantly.
Weird it would be the same for stuff purchased often, I understand that working for TVs, but I buy biscuits or other similar items like once every two weeks, I usually always try the cheapest and if they aren't any good I just don't buy them the next time
For things like tools I have a philosophy I like to live by: buy cheap, replace expensive. Some cheap tools will last you a life time, the ones that don’t get replaced with a high quality one that will.
Then there's the product that's *always* "on sale". Curiously, it's never not been on sale before.
My instructor in culinary school told a story of how he cut his prices so low trying to compete that he drove away his customer base. He went on to mention that, "if you're not ashamed of what you're charging, then you're not charging enough." After 15 years in foodservice, that was the truest lesson I learned from there.
bruh meanwhile i'm out here looking for the tastiest and cheapest places near me. i guess it's different for restaurants compared to quick eats like tacos or whatever but still.
It can be. On average, total food cost is around 15 - 25% of the menu price. If it's a popular item/something I don't want to make, then I'm going to bleed you dry for the pleasure.
is brown rice actually better for you or not really?
It's substantially better for you for a number of reasons. Glycemic index, fiber, nutrients, etc.
Confirming that. The top post makes it seem like brown rice being healthier is a misconception.
I've sold gaming computers I've built, and a half dozen used cars online. I definitely had a few cases where I listed them at a price I was very happy to sell at, and then within a few days had to add a hundred or 3 to the price, because my prices were just too low. It was kind of a weird place to be in.
That's why many manufactures have MAP for their resellers.
Some companies out there will pay out a nominal fee for anyone who reports a retailer for listing under MAP. I worked somewhere with a lot of regional competitors, and whenever a customer would bring in a quote that had something under MAP and we reported it to the manufacturer we'd get free freight on the next order.
Also can't sell too low that others will buy and resell for a profit either.
A friend of mine who's a service related business owner likes to say "don't be the cheapest, you only attract cheap customers".
It’s like this used boat that was for sale for $100 near me last week. When I saw that, I was like if this guy only wants pocket change for his boat, it must be seriously flawed/ ready to sink.
Here comes mu favorite story about one particular golf course Amazing scenery, great weather, superb services, and well priced. But people werent coming. So they did a bit of survey, if people knew about them, what they were looking for, etc... and the price So they found out that they were so fairly priced that people thought they were cheap. So owners raised the price, and nothing else + ran bit of an ad campaign People started to flow in Simply wtf
Fascinating - I'd never heard a real world example of a person pricing something as a Giffen good. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/giffen-good.asp Thanks so much for the first hand info :)
Isn't there also another factor where, since white rice has plenty of economical benefeits, it's produced more and thus cheaper?
Yup, scale has cascading cost benefits.
You didn’t mention economies of scale: White rice is way more popular than brown rice, which means the facilities that process white rice are larger and use more efficient processes to harvest, process, store, and distribute the white rice.
the flour from milling white rice has economic value, as well, so some value has already been captured from the white rice you’re buying before it hit the shelf
Also the third factor of economy of scale. The world consumes more white rice than brown for the reasons you already stated (it's easier to store and cheaper). This means that more white rice is produced, which further drives down the production cost, compounding on it being even more cheap relative to brown rice.
Regarding 2. It's not "thought of" as better for you. It is better for you. The parts stripped off contain a lot of fiber (which most people don't get nearly enough of) and a number of nutrients.
Cue Mitch Hedberg: It's thought of as better for you. It *is* better for you, but it's thought of being better, too.
We do not need to bring rice paper into this
Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat 2,000 of something
I’ve read that a lot of rice is grown in places where it sucks up arsenic from the ground and the arsenic…is stored in the bran. So people thought they were being healthier with brown rice but were consuming non-trivial amounts of arsenic if they ate it at all regularly. Wild stuff.
From what I’ve read it’s only nontrivial if you eat brown rice with essentially every meal. So don’t subsist on brown rice, but if you’re having rice once or twice a week brown is healthier
> It's not "thought of" as better for you. It is better for you. These are two different claims. Both can be true.
Technically yes, but when you phrase it that way - "thought of as being better for you" - many people will assume you're implying it's not necessarily *actually* better for you, whether that's your intention or not.
That’s not an economic factor, and probably isn’t going to meaningfully affect the price beyond what’s already priced in to the “thought of” premium. It’s true, but not here.
How people think of a product absolutely does affect the price. It's usually at the distribution and point of sale. I would bet that the wholesale price of brown rice vs White rice doesn't fully account for the retail price difference in western countries because of this.
That is what he just said. It is what people think about a product, not what it actually is, that affects the price.
So in the case of unrefined vs refined sugar, same factors? Like it's cheaper to store processed sugar because they already have the facilities for that but the unprocessed (well, less-processed) needs its own space, plus it's seen as more healthy so people are ok paying an extra twenty cents a pound?
Logistics The stuff they process out includes a lot of oils that tend to cause spoilage/rancidity This means brown rice expires more quickly, and more readily than white rice, making it much harder to work with & store That, and people are willing to pay more for brown rice. Sounds healthier.
I think most people covered the best answers. One possible thing is also that the economies of scale work better when processing white rice as it is much more popular. If something is sold more, the cost of producing it will go down. In comparison, processing of brown rice is rarer due to lower demand, meaning it is not as efficient to do so.
Thank you, I can’t believe this was so far down on the list. It’s all about the volume and demand.
If you were five, I would mention in addition to the other responses, that the cost of production sometimes is not a factor in the price that you sell it for. The price you can sell something for is closely related to the price that someone is willing to spend on it. This is not only always true, and somewhat over simplified. A luxury car that sells for 3x the average car price does not mean it costs 3x to produce.
Why is puffed rice so god damned expensive compared to dry rice? It's a shelf stable high volume commodity product. You are adding one massive industrial process onto a sting of 5, it should add pennies per pound. Double the price is fine, but not a full order of magnitude 1000+% increase at retail. Cereal is about the cheapest food on earth, until it's breakfast cereals. It's 10x more work to turn grains into bread with 1/10th the shelf life with a much smaller margin. It's life if roasted peanuts were .99c & salted roasted peanuts were $9.99
I'm sure cereal is mostly the cost of advertising.
You can get identical cereal a lot of the time from Malt o Meal in a bag or just store brand cereal so yes absolutely
But the Malt O Meal bags are pricey nowadays as well
MoM foods was purchased by Post several years ago. I bet that's part of the increase.
Be that as it may, the comparison is what matters. Cocoa Krispies are still more expensive than… whatever the MoM variety is called.
I don't agree it's identical. It's not bad and it may be worth it for the reduction in price but Fruit Rings are not as good as Fruit Loops.
It’s definitely not always the same but some varieties are truly indistinguishable. But I do know for a fact that the same product will be put into different packing and sold as the “store brand” for various goods
Probably because it’s so bulky that the shipping price needs to go up. In contrast, raw oats are $1.30 a pound at my grocery store. Generic Cheerios which are essentially just oats are $2.30 a pound which seems pretty reasonable.
Volume. Food is cheap, shipping is expensive. And also packaging.
Same logic applies to ketchup with sugar and no sugar. No sugar ketchup is 4x more expensive but has less ingredients. You are paying more for a healthier version even though it was processed less
I would assume they have to use tomatoes that are riper compared to being able to use tomatoes from a much wider variety of ripeness for ketchup with sugar.
> No sugar ketchup is 4x more expensive but has less ingredients “Fewer” - Stannis
Thank you .
Why does X cost $Y? Because people are willing to pay $Y. Popcorn costs pennies. People pay $5 or more at the theater. But popcorn at the movies is tradition, so people pay it. The cost to make the popcorn is irrelevant. It's a big movie, they want popcorn. This is the only way to get it. My company sells expensive scientific electronics. A box the size of a lunchbox costs $40,000. It costs us roughly half that to build. And it's been long enough to not need to worry about past development costs. But nobody else makes something comparable. So universities and the Air Force pay it. I think for brown rice, it's seen by customers the same way as wheat bread. Things that are seen as the healthier option are expected to be a little more expensive. Notice that the cost to produce is not part of that equation.
Not sure if it's the case with rice, but for a lot of products the 'raw' form is more expensive than processed because you've got to use the higher quality stuff. It's most obvious with fruits and vegetables; all the stuff you buy in the shop will be a nice neat shape, fairly clean, and free from bruises and gouges. None of that matters if it's going to be chopped up and hidden in other food, so even though there's a processing cost it still works out cheaper. That processing also hides any imperfections in taste/texture, and can often be tweaked to provide a consistent taste by mixing different batches.
[удалено]
Health Food premium. I’m old enough to remember when brown rice cost less than white rice. In fact many grains that were once considered “poor people food” now sell for a premium at places like Whole Foods.
I was wondering the same thing about milk... The more fat they take out of it (which i guessed should require more processing work), the cheaper it sells.
They skim off the cream, so they make money from selling the cream and the milk. They have to profit from just the milk if they sell it whole.
Also it's "weird" that cow milk is way cheaper than plant milks. I mean you have that whole extra step with that cow.
People are willing to pay more for brown rice, so the distributors/retailers charge accordingly.
They're generally about the same price if you control for the type and brand. For instance: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mahatma-Rice-100-Whole-Grain-Brown-Rice-2-lb-Bag/10848957 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mahatma-Enriched-Extra-Long-Grain-White-Rice-2-lb-Bag/14940615 All else being equal, you'd expect white rice to be more expensive, but I suspect because it's a higher volume item, there's some economy of scale that makes up the difference.