German shoppers, who enjoy some of Europe's cheapest groceries, are being asked this week by discount supermarket Penny to pay extra for some items to cover their "true cost" as it seeks to raise awareness of the environmental price of producing food.
  • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
    144·
    1 year ago

    The thing is that capitalism wants to keep customer costs high for environmentally better products and services so they aren’t the primary option in the illusion of choice given to people.

    • CommodoreSixtyFour_@discuss.tchncs.de
      31·
      1 year ago

      Who is this “capitalism” you are talking about? If with that you mean the general battlefield of the market, then you have a point. Of course there are people who want to keep the scales tipped in favour of the already established products. And of course the companies that produce them have connections to wealthy and powerful people. And of course that makes it harder for new product types to challenge the market. I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. Just one thing there: The choice is not an illusion. But you need to create part of the opportunity yourself. We are talking about a market here. And for participation on the market, you need the means to participate. I would guess that this is where you are coming from. Still, keeping people poor is not what is taking away the choice. It is a pretty complicated topic though, so I will stop here. Have my upvote in the meantime.

      • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
        3·
        1 year ago

        Yes it’s more a ‘what’ not a ‘who’, although some status quo beneficiaries definitely have more sway, money is power after all in this system of hierarchy and authority. I almost wrote about the myth of the invisible hand but decided not to.

        Point is that human behaviour is guided more by supply, not by demand. Which could bring about the topic where capitalism skews humanity to be greedier…

        But thanks for the pondering and upboats

    • hh93@lemm.ee
      22·
      1 year ago

      Have any more of those conspiracies where you are from? What else are “they” controlling?

      Seriously right now the cost is higher because of economical scaling not being nearly as efficient with better products since there isn’t enough demand.

      Meat replacements got much cheaper in the last 5 years because they managed to scale better because more people kept buying them and they likely could go even cheaper but apparently people wouldn’t trust replacements under a certain price point (but somehow they don’t have a problem buying pork for even less money)

      • bentropy@feddit.de
        31·
        1 year ago

        Could you explain the absurd high price of oat milk to me? I mean oat is cheap af, water is cheap af and the infrastructure to produce and package is already well established. But still, oat milk is compared to what it is insanely expensive…

        If you look closely you’ll see that investment firms like black rock, vanguard or staat street have their fingers in and in part control over almost all global companies. And evan without that fact - maximizing profits and growth - is kind of the main mantra of the global economy.

        Saying scalability is the main factor for higher prices and capitalists controlling prices would be a conspiracy theory seams very shortsighted and, sorry, uneducated to me.

        • hh93@lemm.eeEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          look up subsidies to milk-producers

          the price is still high compared to milk because milk is selling for far less than it should be (even if you completely ignored environmental cost) and many oat milks try to match that price-point as good as they can and are even selling at a loss (see Oatly)

          a lot of food is costing very little in comparison because the government is subsidizing it - shifting subsidies away from meat/dairy would make them cost more and potentially bankrupt local farmers - I just don’t see that every happening with how many people are thinking they have a right to eat meat every day

          also for example in Germany there are two tax-brackets for sales-tax the standard 19% or the reduced 7% - “basic-foods” are taxed at 7% and that includes milk and meat while oat-milk and meat-replacements are taxed as “special food” at 19% so that’s also a barrier that you just can’t break down by scaling better

          there are a lot of levers but pretty much all of them will have to result in meat and milk prices rising deliverately because of politicians - don’t tell me that you believe that this won’t result in a fundamental shitstorm against them…

        • Rayspekt@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Oat milk is that expensive because hipsters don’t care and pay that price. They aren’t only selling a sustainable milk alternative, they are selling a lifestyle. There is not much of a conspiracy aside from companies charging the maximum that customers are willing to buy.

      • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
        2·
        1 year ago

        There is no conspiracy here.

        If governments wanted, they’d subvent environmental options to be more feasible to the population. They just don’t. Corporates don’t have the incentive, so it’s not expected from them.

        • hh93@lemm.eeEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          governments can only want what the people want

          look at the outcry when the Ukraine-War slightly increased the gas-prices - now imagine what would happen if Governments skewed the product-costs towards the real costs for the environments

          The change has to start with the people so the governments have a chance to actually change anything without commiting political suicide

          noone is forcing people to buy meat - they do it because it’s far too cheap for what it causes to the environment - which government do you ever see increasing meat-prices tenfold if only a handful of people shows them that they are open to go without meat deliverately?

          • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
            1·
            1 year ago

            And people want something out of the options given to them. Corporates make the choices, people pick out of that.

            If every option is regulated up, people have even less options. Ecological options need to be cheaper to adjust human behaviour.

            People are not one homogeneous group with enough power to be the change. It’s an ideal to be strived for, sure, but against the capitalist present situation.

            • hh93@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              And people want something out of the options given to them

              but there are responsible options - people are just too lazy (flying, driving) or too entitled to change their habits (meat, milk, also driving) to make the right choice. Sure sometimes it’s more expensive but many times it’s actually less expensive (like biking or not eating meat) but people still don’t care enough to make those changes to their habits and are actually furious if politicians are only suggesting that they should.

              People are not one homogeneous group with enough power to be the change.

              but they actually are - many cities are already making it harder for people to drive a car there and far easier to use the bikes because people living there want it that way. Or for example the biggest producer of meat-replacements in Germany was a purely meat-producing company 20 years ago and are currently on a trajectory to not produce meat anymore because people kept buying their replacements in an amount that their profits from those surpassed those from meat a couple of years ago.

              Voting with your wallet totally works.

              • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
                2·
                1 year ago

                Yes. Those sakes are because capitalism rewards the perpetual laziness (flying is easier and faster than hopping on board a freight diesel ship, many countries make driving the norm) & entitledness.

                And yes, some cities are becoming better as in with bike lanes and such. If the people as a homogeneous group were the factor without capitalism interfering to their behavior, that would already be the norm.

                Change happens slowly because current beneficiaries stifle the want to change from reaching the critical mass as long as they can.

                Voting with wallets is a nice sentiment, but it’s out of reach for so many that we need to stop blaming the population for its wants and needs. The majority of the responsibility is in bigger hands.

                The possibility for a locally sourced good beef needs to be on the same line for any person. Same goes for the solar powered flight. Or the bike infrastructure.

                Without even options, pushing responsibility to the few capable and informed is just a capitalist/corporate distraction.

                • hh93@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  current beneficiaries

                  I think the main problem is that this isn’t just the owners of some corporation but also the average citizen.

                  it’s objectively a downgrade if you don’t have the option to fly for holiday and see other cultures every year. It’s definitely a downgrade to have to adhere to train-schedules instead of just hopping into your car.

                  the problem is always “why should I do it if others don’t” and then nothing moves - and since it looks to politicians as if noone wants to do anything they don’t implement measures…

                  solar powered flight won’t happen as batteries are too heavy - that’s imho the main-thing we should use hydrogen for (other than perhaps chemical/steel-companies)

                  beef is never a good option because of the amount of food you need to even get to the end-product - it’s just too inefficient. And in a world where we already destroy enough species by climate change we will need to cut down on chemicals to kill the few insects that are left and in result the birds that rely on them and do even worse damage to the ecosystem that we can’t even comprehend. but if we don’t use chemicals to kill insects we will need more space to grow the same amount of food and we just don’t have the luxury of using that to feed cows in order to get to meat.

                  not to mention that “locally sourced beef” won’t help if it’s food is soy coming from a farm that was rainforrest 5 years ago

                  it’s just a huge prisoner’s dilemma and noone wants to be the first person or the first country to move out of fear that others might exploit that. I mean you have people online telling everyone stating that they are vegan for the climate that they’ll eat twice as much meat now just to make up for it - or people flying multiple times a year since they just don’t care. Social responsibility never will work on it’s own but without it there won’t be any laws…

  • zephyrvs
    73·
    1 year ago

    Great timing, now that people are already struggling…

    • FIST_FILLET@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      the article states that they are only doing it on a select few products. it’s more symbolic than a full-on protest

    • cnnrduncan@beehaw.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      Things are only going to get worse if our species keeps going the way we have been.

      Also this is only a single supermarket chain, it’s not that hard to simply shop at a different supermarket that week.

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    Yeah don’t put the costs on the billionaires and corporations or anything, just keep blaming the lower class and putting the cost on them.

  • FIST_FILLET@kbin.social
    23·
    1 year ago

    german supermarkets are so fucking cool man. they also have an insanely wide selection of vegan products