Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Neat tool to start asking questions about food systems. The variations of prices are affected by many different things, from where it's made, to how it's transported, where it's stored intermediately, how much vertical integration is involved, the costs of retail in different locations, etc.

French Green Beans and Washington Granny Smith Apples are good ones to compare. West coast: only bottom-end prices. East coast: only top-end prices. These are two items you could grow on either coast, need temperature control for shipping, can be seasonal depending on the source. You could find them locally on either coast, so they're probably not shipping them from one coast to the other (or are they?). Price fluctuation might be just regional retail costs or supply/demand. Or it could be they're shipping them cross-country just to simplify logistics and marking up the price accordingly.

Simply Nature Organic Pasta is all over the place. Could be regional price fluctuations, could be logistics, maybe demand.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: