What is in our food and drinks?

[Ro_Laren]

I was drinking apple juice today and noticed that it was made from "South Africa China New Zealand Concentrate." Should I be afraid? Gotta love it when your drink is made from concentrate from 3 continents, right? BTW, I live in the U.S. and bought this apple juice at the German grocery chain Aldi.

 

[Count Zero]

Mmh, maybe it's a secret message? South Africa, China, New Zealand, concentrate! Us Germans are pretty shifty, you know.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think it's telling people living in those countries that they need to concentrate while drinking it.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Mmh, maybe it's a secret message? South Africa, China, New Zealand, concentrate!

Sounds like they were distracted and your guys delivered a well-deserved scolding!

 

[scotpens]

Maybe it’s made from South Africans, Chinese, and New Zealanders in concentration camps.

Nature’s Nectar Apple Juice is PEOPLE!!

(Re-edited to be funnier.)

 

[RoJoHen]

Maybe it’s made from concentrated South Africans, Chinese, and New Zealanders.

Nature’s Nectar Apple Juice is PEOPLE!!

I'm just happy it's Pulp Free.

 

[Ro_Laren]

Hmmmm... I just realized that 5 continents were involved in the transaction. The ingredients come from Africa (South Africa), Asia (China), and Australia (New Zealand). They were bought by a European (Germany) company named Aldi and then sold in North America (USA). Kinda crazy...

 

[Count Zero]

I highly doubt that the ingredients really come from those countries because it's usually a lot cheaper to buy more or less local produce and apples grow anywhere.

 

[RoJoHen]

I highly doubt that the ingredients really come from those countries because it's usually a lot cheaper to buy more or less local produce and apples grow anywhere.

Produce is seasonal, though. You can't get the same fruit from the same place all year round.

 

[Ro_Laren]

I highly doubt that the ingredients really come from those countries because it's usually a lot cheaper to buy more or less local produce and apples grow anywhere.

Produce is seasonal, though. You can't get the same fruit from the same place all year round.

My last of Aldi Apple Juice said "South Africa China Concentrate." I thought was funny enough and then the bottle I put in the fridge today had New Zealand too.

 

[Technomage]

Hmmmm... I just realized that 5 continents were involved in the transaction. The ingredients come from Australia (New Zealand)....

New Zealand is definitely not part of the Australian continent! It's a separate, independent, country that just happens to be near Aussie.

As for the apple juice, the only country I would want my apples sourced from out of those three is New Zealand! We grow the best apples in the world, and have the highest and safest production values too - no dodgy GM varieties are grown, and no dodgy chemicals are used to control pests, etc, either.

 

[SmoothieX]

I highly doubt that the ingredients really come from those countries because it's usually a lot cheaper to buy more or less local produce and apples grow anywhere.

Labor is much cheaper in some places than others though.

 

[DeafPoet]

Hey, they get the ingredients from where they're cheap. Just be glad they're being honest in their labeling practices.

 

[Technomage]

I highly doubt that the ingredients really come from those countries because it's usually a lot cheaper to buy more or less local produce and apples grow anywhere.

Labor is much cheaper in some places than others though.

We grow huge quantities of apples, which means there are many imperfect (non export grade) ones available for the juice market.

 

[Count Zero]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to get them from Mexico, though? With New Zealand being so far away I would have thought the transport costs would kill any advantage there might be in prices (and the prices would probably still be lower in China and South Africa). It's different for exotic fruits, but apples? Seeems sort of weird for a branch that operates with very small profit margins.

A few years ago, German dairy farmers demanded a bit more money because they couldn't really live off what chains like Aldi were ready to pay for the milk. Instead of paying them slightly more the chains bought milk from Poland which was cheaper. That makes me think they would always go for the cheapest solution.

 

[Holdfast]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to get them from Mexico, though?

Clearly not, or they'd be doing it. Like you said, businesses - especially larger ones with the ability to arbitrage global price differences - don't tend to pick the more expensive option. Of course, expense has to be seen as a totality (including the total cost of changing existing arrangements and researching alternatives), but still the fundamental point remains.

Containerisation makes moving stuff around by sea pretty cheap these days. I doubt apple juice concentrate is particularly difficult to transport (stick it in massive sealed aseptic plastic bags inside standardised drums in the container) so even small production cost differences would be enough to outweigh transportation costs. China's size, climate, and economy of scale in production from its infrastructure, undoubtedly makes its concentrate cheaper than Mexico's. Don't know about New Zealand and South Africa, but perhaps the same is true there too, at least in Northern Hemisphere winter.

For more perishable foodstuffs, transportation costs are higher (need for refrigeration, or even air freight), but I doubt apple juice concentrate needs much more care than a container full of nails. Reconstitute it more locally to your retail site, so as to minimise the transport cost of moving that more bulky and perishable item.

 

[MacLeod]

At the end of the day the consumer drives the sourcing of a product. If the consumer wants products sourced from within their country then the manufactures/retaiulers will meet their demand. If the consumer wants cheapest possible price once again that'll demand will be meet.

 

[Count Zero]

Well, you can only buy what shops offer, and often the option of buying something produced in the way you want (e.g. locally, green, organic etc.) doesn't exist. Over here, at least with produce, it's a bit easier to make that decision but try to find an electronic device that wasn't (largely) produced in China and you're out of luck. Blaming the consumer seems absurd in those cases and that's not even considering that consumers don't have infinite income and often have to go for cheaper or even the cheapest option if they want to make ends meet.