[Sca-cooks] bananas
Claire Clarke
angharad at adam.com.au
Tue Jul 20 04:38:31 PDT 2010
Message: 5
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:36:43 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] bananas
Message-ID: <14AB2DD551E04937A7F720772BB03BEB at TerryPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
The current price on bananas in Oklahoma is .49 USD per avoirdupois pound
(or $1.08 per kilogram). That is approximately .56 AUD per avoirdupois
pound or 1.23 AUD per kilogram. Given that Oklahoma is a landlocked state
with a seaport, the price is likely to be a good working number for bananas
in the US (cheaper on the coasts, higher in the central plains and Rocky
Mountain west. So how do actual prices compare between Oklahoma and
Australia?
Stefan's formula is the one used by the fruit growers to wring fabulous
profits out of the banana trade, but it neglects cost/value of refrigerated
transport and distance to market. Refrigerated transport minimizes
spoilage, essentially eliminating the primary cost of shipping. Bulk
shipping reduces the cost of refrigeration and transportation. Distance to
market determines the overall cost of the shipping.
Given the controlled economy in bananas and the shorter shipping distance, I
expect prices in Oz will be a little higher than in the US, but not
outrageous (if it were, the government protection would likely disappear).
I suspect that the banana growers make a moderate but steady profit in the
internal market (which keeps at home support for their business) and any
large profits are made by exporting to Japan and possibly Chile. It would
be interesting to see the financials.
Bear
------------------------------
It's about A$1.99/kg for bananas here which works out to about US$1.75. In
Queensland (where they actually grow) you can get them for as little as
A$0.99/kg. The shipping distance is not so very different too. It's not that
much further from Honduras to Oklahoma than it is from North Queensland to
here.
After Cyclone Larry BTW bananas went up to about $12-14/kg.
Angharad
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list