[Sca-cooks] bananas

Margaret Rendell m_rendell at optusnet.com.au
Tue Jul 20 16:55:22 PDT 2010


Claire Clarke wrote:
> 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). 

No, we're pretty serious about maintaining our quarantine on a lot of 
things. Which is why we have no rabies, no fire blight, no etc etc...

My impression is that bananas here are about twice the US price - and 
that's happened over my (40-something year) lifetime, they used to be 
much more expensive than that for most of the year.

I remember as a child reading a US children's book ("Mitch and Amy" if 
anyone's interested ;) where the mother says to Mitch "I think you run 
on bananas the way a car does on gasoline" and he ate several throughout 
the course of the book, and I assumed from that that the family must be 
rich - bananas were a buyable price for a month or so of the year, but 
mostly they were an occasional expensive treat.


Margaret (Melbourne, (not the banana growing part of) Australia)
/Emma (Krae Glas, Lochac)




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