Quindi vengo originario della Polonia. Mia madre ha appena condiviso una foto di fragole che hanno acquistato oggi su un mercato (stagione di picco della fragola). Ha pagato 1,76 euro per kg. A quanto pare, abbiamo appena acquistato una scatola di 400 g di fragole olandesi su AH per 7,47 euro/kg (è in vendita in questo momento). Non farmi nemmeno iniziare su lamponi, mirtilli, bacche rosse. Sono così costosi qui che raramente li mangio. Mentre sono in Polonia, durante la stagione, sono poveri cibo di base (inclusi cottura, cene, colazioni, pranzi e preparazioni per l’inverno). Non so quale sia la tua opinione su questo, ma preferirei godermi la frutta quando è in stagione a un prezzo economico, quindi ho disponibile quasi tutto l’anno, ma come rarità per i ricchi.
https://i.redd.it/r2hshgvj946f1.jpeg
di chibi_nibi
20 commenti
Labor intensive and expensive transport. When plucked the clock begins ticking for the fresh ones, berries will spoil quickly.
What you can do is grow them yourself, berries aren’t that difficult.
Picking berries is very labour intensive. Labour is expensive. Berries also spoil quickly. The result is that berries are expensive. 🤷♀️
Het is de schuld van de rabobank
I can’t really tell you why they are so expensive other than labour cost, but having had strawberries in Poland when in season, I unfortunately also have to tell you the Polish ones taste vastly better.
Every time I’m on holiday (today I’m in Austria), I’m astounded by how much better the selection of fresh items (vegetables, fruit, meat) is compared to the Netherlands. Both the variety, quality, and price are significantly better.
Something is seriously wrong in the Netherlands we seem to be paying out of our arse for mediocre quality.
Supermarkets only accept a very small amount of strawberries harvested. Like only the top 10% looking ones are ‘good enough’ to end up there, which makes it very expensive.
Farmers stores (from my experience, although I’m sure there are more options) generally do it a bit differently. They still separate the berries by quality, but just also offer the worse ones for a better price.
Roughly the €1,75/kg price you mentioned would be difficult in season but like, everything’s more expensive here, but you can get a lot better prices than AH if you go to some other place. The farm itself is obviously the best place but those aren’t in every area of the country, but even a more general fruit and veg store should be decent
Have you ever been to the market, my friend? I could have bought an entire box of raspberries(12 of the little ones, so 3 kilo) for 5 euros. Same goes for strawberry, they sell them by the bucket for 1.25 a kilo. Yes, it will not be grade A, but I doubt the ones seen here are of similar quality (optically and consistency, not taste) as the ones in Albert Heijn.
As the other user mentioned: you don’t really pay for the product, you pay for the supply chain
1. You’re right
2. The main difference between Poland and the Netherlands in this is the price of labour, because they have to be hand picked. This is done by minimum wage workers (and even in the Netherlands for a large part by Polish workers) but minimum wage in the Netherlands is 2,5 times that in Poland. Another reason is the difference price of farming land.
3. You can find cheaper berries on your local produce market! Google “markt <name of your town>” to find where and when it is. This is always going to have the best price for in-season fruits and vegetables. Also in my experience bell peppers are much cheaper on the markt.
Because of the plastic straw-ban the demand for organic straws is rising. And very berrie of course.
Local economies also pay a big part in this
Strawberries and lots of other fruits and vegetables have PFAS on/in them.
[PFAS on strawberries](https://www.bnnvara.nl/vroegevogels/artikelen/pfas-op-aardbeien-kropsla-en-druiven-uit-de-winkel) article is in dutch.
PFAS is inevitable, and you gotta die from something, so go ahead, but at least you know you’re eating PFAS.
AND NO! You can’t just wash that off, even with vinegar or whatever.
Don’t buy strawberry in a supermarket. They are extremely overpriced because of alle the middleman.
Best place to buy is at the farms themselves, a lot of farmers have a stand outside where you can buy all sort of vegetables depending on the season.
Alternatively, the weekly market or the farmers market have often a more reasonable price than the supermarket.
It’s a simple supply and demand question, as long as people pay the price for it, the price will go up, because they can.
All fruits are expensive because in the Netherlands is not easy to grow fruit. The weather doesn’t help
[Go to a place where you can pick them yourself](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=zelf+aardbeien+plukken&t=iphone&ia=web)
You are comparing Albert Heijn to a week market. Granted, they will also be more expensive on the market here, but nowhere near that much.
Berries are a very, very fragile fruit and are very labour intensive to harvest. Their shelve life is very short.
It also depends on where in the country you live. In the east of the country they’re a lot cheaper in supermarkets. Like seriously, even I was shocked when I saw the price you mentioned as here in the east they still aren’t cheap but still way better priced. And then strawberries from the supermarket don’t even taste nice, they are often sour and watery… I generally end up cycling to the other side of the border to our eastern neighbors where I know where to find some good strawberry fields and buy from there. They are always sooooooo damn sweet and full of taste.
Yeah, I do understand that AH is not the best place. But I also remember that in my small home town (~80k people, which is small for Poland) there was a farmer’s market every day of the week except Sundays. And it was in the city centre, so a very convenient way to get the fresh produce every day.
Here it happens only once a week (Saturday) and locally, in my suburb, there is one on Thursdays. But so far, I see them selling the same stuff that AH does and for similar prices. Not much seasonality in there. Like I don’t expect a farmer to sell mangoes and bananas. I expect them to have only the current season produce that they are right now harvesting. My memories from Poland are literally of whole trucks of strawberries coming every day to town with fresh berries. Mountains of strawberries everywhere and eating them all day for a few weeks, and then they are gone. Replaced by cherries, sour cherries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. All at different times of the year when they are at their best. I don’t see this much on those ‘farmer markets’ which makes me seriously doubt their ‘farmer’ label, they look like just another middle-man. And it was always the same people. So you also got to know them, and trust them.
We would similarly also see dairy farmers selling fresh (cottage) cheese, cream, butter, and unpasteurised fresh milk. Small batches, every day.
I grew up with fresh, highly variable produce. Now I am stuck with a questionable quality of ‘staple’ fruit and veggies at high prices.
And unfortunately, I am not able to drive every day around the country to visit farmers and get fresh stuff straight from them.
I guess it’s also a difference in production styles. I see farmers in the Netherlands are highly specialised and also own big lands, farms, etc. so you produce a lot of the same thing.
Where I am from, farms were small and diverse (hilly/mountain regions don’t fare well with massive farms, standardisation, and efficiency optimisation). My family comes from a long line of farmers. My cousins are still farmers. They have many different crops, just smaller batches. But that allows them to rotate the land, and also have stable income throughout the whole year.
Dutch economy isn’t suitable to offer food that has short shelf time for a low price.
Grow it yourself, buy it frozen? Blackberries are easy. But here again, it takes up space and space is expensive.