Quote:
Originally Posted by Ste68
Excuse me if I don't agree with someone of you, the price of the meat in France is not a matters of quality but political. I buy meat for 25 years and French meat is not know like the best. In all countries it works like this, in Italy the Italian meat costs more than a lot of foreign meat, in Austria the Austrian fillet of beef costs 40 € kg, the Irish, Argentinian, Brazilian cost 22-28 € kg....Why?? The Austrian beef is not the best of the world. These are national policies.
We have to stop believing that high price means high quality.
As a restaurateur I say you that this is a big lie!!!
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"political"
No it's much more complicated. It's also the distributors like Carre***r, Lecle** and Co that take the biggest part of the profit ie, price of the meat- its cost of prod'. They buy the meat to farmers and sell it to consumers. Not only the State nor Farmers nor Unions that impose ridiculous conditions or whatever. These are private companies that more or less listen only themselves/the market. They decide of the price considering the demand for their products and the profit they want to make (usually maximized or say "optimized" subject to various...constraints).
Now higher prices definitely means high quality somewhere.... everything else being equal and when you aren't trapped yes. You are free to investigate a little to discover the dark side -or not- of the product you buy. If it's not the meat itself that gains in quality then it's its footprint on the nature... or both.
Yet, when you go to your butcher (no intermediate big company thirsty for profits) that comes right from
Rungis international market you pay more (not that much actually), and the quality is just higher that's all. There's no debate, my mouth is rational and my wallet too, and even if I'm french I can have the notion of quality/price ratio.
For the price of the production, it is not only the quality of the meat itself that is responsible, how tender it is with the proper quantity of fat in the muscles thanks to empty green fields for our brave cows, it's also the norms of production + various taxes/contributions and money to reimburse your machines blablabla.
You will tell me "there it is, the political part, no need for a bunch of useless norms and France taxes too much or has a too high minimum wage or both". Yes it's true. And France like red tape it's well known. But prices of meat could still be lower (maybe not German level but definitely lower).
Again, hypermakets buy the meat and maximize their profits regarding the demand for it. Farmers can just sh** up (else supermarket don't buy their stuffs and seek for the producer with the lowest prices...or unions appears to have a minimum price but usually their revendications are quite marginal on the price) and the consumer buys at the end of the chain with the price that maximize the profit of the company.
One thing is sure, supermarkets understood that french are
extremely attached to the origin of the meat. Ofc they use it as a levar they aren't stupid, but french aren't totally sheeps too, as usual it depends how much "Mister Everyone" is willing to pay for his piece of meat coming from France.
So you pay the logo "France" on your meat and that's what french want.
When I compare a last generation Peugeo* and german Volkswag* there's also a "german qualität" part in the price. Well people buy it even if recently we discovered it was a lure for some... "part" (Thank you Volksw'). There's a demand, industry answers.
Now we are talking like if it was "expensive". Well not it is not or not more than Belgium or Italy. 18$/kg in France (Italy too), 12$/kg in Germany. I went to Germany in Ald* , Lidl** and co, well I understand the difference of prices (seriously, unless cars when it comes to quality of food germans aren't...a reference). The east-German farms that produce cheap meat with giant farms are the main reason as well as cheap east european workforce and lower taxes. I'm sure a good German butcher with good german beef has comparable prices to the french butcher because real good meat has a cost.
And I prefer pay more in this case, that's my POV. Else I would buy cheap meat in France because it simply... exists...and comes from various countries of EU
, you don't pay the mention "France" and there you go (and people buy it ofc, but not the majority).
Few figures...I don't like numbeo but at least they give a beginning of answer.
Price of basic beef meat:
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Diverse basic needs:
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Financial health of households from OECD, good to compare a little bit PPP (euros) :
https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-...ble-income.htm
Yes price of life in France isn't cheap unfortunately...but when
you work in France with a french wage, paying french taxes, paying french social contributions with your wage, you benefit from french social redistributions and free stuffs, , it ends up that you afford it normally, not less than somewhere else like Italy or UK or Canada.
The meat (Not beef only) consumption in France per year per capita is comparable to those countries.
So price is: norms, supermarket profits, french that want french meat and if you are a little bit aware and know where to go, quality definitely.
I add that the disposable income of households (not wage nor Gdp per capita) in France is in the same range than the Canadian one, cf OECD table, higher than Italy for sure. So we could debate of the price of the meat in Italy the same way
)
For me meat was much more expensive in South Korea for example... I guess it depends on where you live.
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