why does more food cost less?

i was just chatting with my parrents who live mostly overseas and the fact that over in the pacific a lot of stuff costs more in bulk, where as here it costs less.

now the general stated reason for bigger quantities costing less is less packaging. but that isn't realy true, just look at a normal box of cerial vs a family pack. all a family pack is , is two normal bags in one bigger box, in fact many of these "bulk" deals are multiple single servings in a bigger package.

by the way packaging is actualy only a very small percentage of an items total cost, kind of like when you buy a glass of pop in a retraunt. the cup may cost 10 cents the lid 5 cents and the straw 1 cent(if that actualy it is probably much lower but i havent seen prices in years i am useing as an example). son taht actualy isn't a valid reason for chageing less for more.

the reason i bring this up is i am single. it costs me a small fourtune to try to buy things in single servings, if they can be found at all. why not buy bulk? well i am sick and tired of all the food that ends up wasted because it goes bad or gets major freezer burn before i can use it all. so i realy don't save anything but add to the garbage that goes to michigan. we even have a "green box" program for compostables, but all that is is they toss in your garbage bages then empty your green box in the garbage truck next, i have watched them do this, just as we used to follow recycleing trucks to the dump years ago.

it seems to me that this may be a conspiricy to sell more keeping the supply lower than if we just bought what we could actualy use. i feel that everything should cost the same wether i buy say 1 steak at $2.00, or if i were to buy a six pack of the same weight steaks for $12.00. it's like buying a mc donalds combo but if i don't want the fries it costs me more, i realy hate wasteing food ever since i had to ration my food for over a year. not to metion that i work in a lower paying job so every penny counts. so why do we permitt this gougeing of the single people?

It's simple.

Lets use your steak scenario


lets say you have 20 steaks on sale for $2.00 each

or you can buy a pack of 20 of $35 you save $5

now lets say it costs the company $.50 per steak

ok....now you have 20 steaks on the shelf...5 get sold the other 15 spoil and get tossed...the company just lost $7.50 and profited $7.50

now lets say you bought the $30 pack. you eat 5 and the other 15 go bad. Well the company already made their profit of $20 vs the profit of $7.50 and they don't have to worry about losing money on the food that was not purchased.

but they do care if the other singles went bad because they just lost money

there is no conspiracy here, just business.

basically the bulk is cheaper so its easier to push and the company doesn't have to deal with losing money on food that goes bad.

hope that helps

Yup prices are lower in bulk to encourage purchase because it's a guaranteed profit whereas if it's sitting on the shelf it's still just an opportunity with a risk of loss. But this applies to everything, not just food. I can cut my costs in half by buying 1000 pieces of electronic component X rather than just buying 10 every time I run out.

Also I have found it's best to only buy non-perishables in bulk, things that will keep for many months, and store it in a cool place with a constant temperature like a cellar or basement. I actually built a cinder block cellar in my basement just for this. But I'll also buy a couple months worth of fish or chicken and repackage it before freezing. If you're getting bad freezer burn you probably need to repack the items before sticking them in the freezer. Vacuum packing is best, but plastic wrap wrapped tight against the item then placed in a freezer bag with all the air squeezed out works for me.

A recent book by a U.S. nutritionist pinpoints why large containers of food in the U.S. costs less. The reason is that the U.S. produces an oversupply of food, according to a number of agricultural economists the author interviewed. The book is:

What to eat, by Marion Nestle (2006). Published by North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux - New York.

For example: "The deep dark secret of American agriculture (revealed only by agricultural economists behind closed doors) is that there is far too much food available -- 3,900 calories per day for every man, woman, and child in the country, whereas the average adult needs only a bit more than half that amount, and children much less. The 3,900 calorie figure is at the high end of the amount available in the food supply of industrialized countries. Even though these are the available calories ... and not necessarily the amount you actually eat, they reflect substantial excess."

That is from pp. 11-12 of What To Eat. It's a great book on nutrition, and is very well written. For more discussion of this book and related topics, the author has a blog. Here is a link to a page on that blog which discusses food economics, specifically the recent rise in food prices:


whattoeatbook.com...