At a time when multinational food and consumer goods manufacturers are attempting to impose double digit prices hikes in the UK after Brexit (and Ireland inexplicably). I thought as someone who used to work for a big consumer company, some depressing facts may interest DS forumers now:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee
BTW, note coffee per bag in 1977 was double what it is today ($158 now).
And wheat:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/wheat
And in America right now, items like cheese, eggs, milk and beef have slumped in price by a fifth to a quarter in 2016, saving shopper hundreds of dollars in the long run.
Now, I am sure I will get the usual blowback of: "there are alot more costs than just the commodity". While that is true, oil is down massively for the past eighteen months and global rates for shipping are at an all time low because of falling global demand and so hiring ships costs almost nothing now.
The simple reality is that the EU and probably Britain after Brexit too artificially massively inflate our food prices to protect the farming lobby, and worse than that, multinational manufacturers who source things like coffee or corn from outside the EU, use our docility with respect to pricing because of the EU market controls, to maintain high prices on goods that should be reduced by 20% at least.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee
BTW, note coffee per bag in 1977 was double what it is today ($158 now).
And wheat:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/wheat
And in America right now, items like cheese, eggs, milk and beef have slumped in price by a fifth to a quarter in 2016, saving shopper hundreds of dollars in the long run.
Now, I am sure I will get the usual blowback of: "there are alot more costs than just the commodity". While that is true, oil is down massively for the past eighteen months and global rates for shipping are at an all time low because of falling global demand and so hiring ships costs almost nothing now.
The simple reality is that the EU and probably Britain after Brexit too artificially massively inflate our food prices to protect the farming lobby, and worse than that, multinational manufacturers who source things like coffee or corn from outside the EU, use our docility with respect to pricing because of the EU market controls, to maintain high prices on goods that should be reduced by 20% at least.
