(public).sospep.subjects ~ view article ~ why-chinatowns-fruits-and-veg-are-so-crazy-cheap

<h1 style="text-align: center;">why chinatowns fruits and vegetables are so crazy cheap</h1>
<h2>[WHAT]</h2>
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<li>] by Anne Kadet @wsj.com (PAYWALL) - Kadet explores (some of) the reasons that Asian produce markets in NYC are able to offer much lower prices</li>
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<h2>[WHY]</h2>
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<li>]&nbsp;</li>
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<h2>[WHERE]</h2>
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<li><strong>] READ THE FULL ARTICLE</strong></li>
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<li>]&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-fruits-and-veggies-are-so-crazy-cheap-in-chinatown-1466762400" target="_blank">http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-fruits-and-veggies-are-so-crazy-cheap-in-chinatown-1466762400</a></li>
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<h2>[WHEN]</h2>
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<li>] 2016-09-09</li>
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<h2>[EXAMPLE]</h2>
<p>&nbsp;fresh ginger for 50 cents a pound.&ldquo;This is the cheapest I&rsquo;ve seen ginger in years.&rdquo;</p>
<p>is one of the many New Yorkers who frequent Chinatown for fruits and vegetables. &ldquo;The food is fresher,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and Chinatown is way cheaper.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I never gave Chinatown&rsquo;s crowded produce markets a chance; I figured the prices were cheap because the selection is all C-grade bok choy and yesterday&rsquo;s bananas</p>
<p>Wrong again! I toured the markets with Valerie Imbruce, an economic botanist who spent more than a decade researching the community&rsquo;s produce supply chain. She even wrote a book on the topic, &ldquo;From Farm to Canal Street: Chinatown&rsquo;s Alternative Food Network in the Global Marketplace.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Her discovery: Chinatown&rsquo;s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the network supplying most mainstream supermarkets.</p>
<p>Most of the city&rsquo;s fruits and vegetables come from wholesalers at the Hunts Point Produce Market, the South Bronx distribution hub boasting all the color and accessibility of La Guardia Airport. Chinatown&rsquo;s green grocers, in contrast, buy their stock from a handful of small wholesalers operating from tiny warehouses right in the neighborhood.</p>
<p><br />Because the wholesalers are in Chinatown, they can deliver fresh produce several times a day, eliminating the need for retailers to maintain storage space or refrigeration, said Ms. Imbruce.</p>
<p>Shelves are typically made of plywood and lined with newsprint; prices are hastily marked on strips of cardboard. Shoeboxes serve as cash registers. The scales are still analogue, and good luck using a credit card.</p>
<p>All this translates into low overhead for the retailers&mdash;and low prices for shoppers. The typical Chinatown produce markup is just 10% to 12% over wholesale, said Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp.</p>
<p>I made a little chart to compare prices with my neighborhood Key Food. In almost every case, Chinatown&rsquo;s prices were less than half what I would pay at the supermarket. Among the bargains: broccoli for 85 cents a pound, $1 each for pomegranates, oranges for a quarter.</p>
<p>Some of the best bargains can be found on day-old produce, at the sidewalk stands on Forsyth Street in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge. Here, $8 buys a 20-pound box of mangos.</p>
<p>Rather than contracting with large, industrial farms, it turns out, Chinatown&rsquo;s wholesalers often buy from small, family farms specializing in Asian vegetables, including backyard &ldquo;home gardens&rdquo; in south Florida, and oxen-plowed plots in central Honduras.</p>
<p><br />Ms. Imbruce knows shoppers often equate low prices with exploitation, but that isn&rsquo;t what she saw on the more than 75 farms she visited. The farmers, she said, were pleased to be growing for the Chinatown wholesalers because they could cultivate an array of crops, leading to economic and agronomic stability</p>
<h2>[HOW-TO]</h2>
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<li>]</li>
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<h2>[REFERENCE]</h2>
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<li>SRC=hn(230)/<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981063" target="_blank">comments</a>(238)&nbsp;</li>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>COMMENT MINE</p>
<p>wsj comments paint a somewhat&nbsp;different&nbsp;(less rosy) picture - maybe overly negative but likely some valid</p>
<p>- poor working conditions, no benefits (ex&nbsp;health care) for employees</p>
<p>- illegal workers</p>
<p>- less stringent quality control</p>
<p>- tax&nbsp;evasion on cash sales</p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</h1>

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