
Readers on food inequality in eastern Europe - spdionis
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/21/in-eastern-europe-we-dont-prefer-to-eat-garbage-readers-on-food-inequality?CMP=fb_gu
======
Mediterraneo10
As someone from Romania, I see this as a distribution problem and a
consequence of consumer apathy. If you live in a few major urban centers, you
can buy high-quality food, often the same products as in Western Europe, and
the prices are within reach of the average city-dweller. The problem is that
in smaller towns, the sole supermarket or two might source only lower-quality
products, so you cannot buy better things no matter how much you want to or
how much money you are willing to spend.

Wanting a quieter working environment, I recently moved from a big city to a
village. The biggest shock for me is how bad the food that is sold here is.
Village shops typically buy all their products from a wholesale store like
Macro, sometimes the inferior versions of Western European brands, or often
the generic brand. The tomato sauce is mostly sugar and food colouring, the
chocolate has no actual chocolate in it, and these products are sold at the
same prices as the high-quality food in the cities, so it is not a simple
matter of rural people not being able to afford better. The people just accept
what they get, and none of my new neighbours understands why I would complain.

So, while it may seem unfair to blame the bad food on the people who are the
victims of it, if there were more concern from the rural/small-town Romanian
public about their food, there might be room for competition and distributors
would change to serve them.

~~~
alt_f4
You are wrong. In the few major urban centers, you can buy the most expensive
and supposedly high-quality food, but that food is still MUCH LOWER QUALITY
than the one sold in Western Europe. And we're talking international brand
names here too. E.g., for example, soft drinks and candy bars would be sold
with HFCS instead of sugar, chocolate will have lower % cocoa. You will find
artificial colorings, preservatives and, generally, all kinds of artificial
flavor improvers over healthier, more natural ingredients that are found in
the Western versions of the same products of the same brand names. And don't
get me started on the quality of meat...

If you haven't noticed that, it is possible you just haven't travelled enough.
I've lived for years in both Western and Eastern Europe, so I can tell you --
the differences are very stark and, IMHO, should be illegal.

~~~
virtuabhi
> for example, soft drinks and candy bars would be sold with HFCS instead of
> sugar, chocolate will have lower % cocoa. You will find artificial
> colorings, preservatives and, generally, all kinds of artificial flavor
> improvers over healthier, more natural ingredients that are found in the
> Western versions of the same products of the same brand names.

Are you talking about USA?

~~~
alt_f4
Nope, but it is generally well known to us, Europeans, that a lot of the food
sold in the US is of lower quality, which is contributing to the US obesity
epidemic, cancer rates, heart issues... This is starting to become a problem
here too.

~~~
faster
When I returned to the US after living in Western Europe, the hardest thing to
adapt to was the quality of food in the supermarkets. I left the first two
grocery stores empty-handed because nothing looked like food to me. It was all
cardboard and plastic and sugar in all its various forms.

However, high quality food is available, but it requires time (to go where it
is, since it isn't always distributed like the plastic-wrapped sugar stuff)
and money, though not always more than the stores charge for mass-produced
things.

~~~
alt_f4
In the US, unlike most cities in Eastern Europe, you at least have the option
to pay a premium and get high quality food.

------
lvh
From the first snippet:

> It’s scary when even the fruit available is obviously full of hormones. We
> had a grapefruit for a while and it became an experiment to see if it would
> ever go bad. After four months we gave up and threw it away – but it still
> looked fresh.

"Full of hormones" is scary language. Plant hormones exist, but they are very
different from animal hormones (which is what prefixless hormones normally
refer to). They are indeed used in commercial farming to e.g. help cuttings
grow new roots faster, or accelerate fruit ripening (e.g. ethylene is commonly
used to ripen bananas). Ripeners are almost the opposite of preservatives, and
plant hormones certainly don't explain a 4 month old fresh-looking grapefruit.
Neither translates to "fruit full of hormones" in any meaningful sense and it
certainly doesn't translate to anything negative. Animals are full of hormones
all of the time: if you don't have hormones you die in pretty short order.
Plants sans hormones doesn't fare much better.

I'm sorry that their agriculture products suck, but perhaps one can say that
without making vague scientific-sounding scaremongering statements.

~~~
hoschicz
This is The Guardian quoting a reader, not The Guardian's original writing.

~~~
roel_v
Well yes, the whole problem here is that we're discussing a Guardian 'article'
as something that should somehow be taken serious. I mean, let's face it, The
Guardian is like Breitbart, except from another corner on the ideological
n-dimensional plane.

------
freshhawk
I kinda laughed at the "Capitalism hasn't delivered" line. Yes it has, the
companies are selling food with the lowest cost to produce that they can
legally sell and using collusion and marketing to avoid a quality arms race
with competitors. I think they were just confused about what was promised.

~~~
izacus
> I think they were just confused about what was promised.

What, exactly, was promised to population when Romania (for example) switched
to capitalism and opened its borders?

~~~
adventured
No doubt they were expecting meaningful economic growth. They got it.

Their economy has increased in size by roughly five fold since they switched
to Capitalism, with zero population growth. They've gone from a GDP per capita
of sub $2,000 to nearly $10,000 in that time. And it appears likely set to
continue growing nicely in the coming decade. I'd be willing to bet that in
another ~15 years they'll get to near $20,000 per capita, generally something
closer to where Slovenia, Slovakia and Czech are today.

~~~
bitL
AFAIK the same living standards the most advanced 2nd world countries (SI, CZ,
SK, DDR) had in 1989 they reached at around 2005, so it's like almost 20 years
wasted on reaching the same quality of life, and that only on average. Before
those societies were much more equal, e.g. income difference was around 5x
from highest level to lowest level, nowadays it's 1000000x (fueled often by
corruption and dysfunctional Rechtstaat), so on average majority of the
population likely had their living standards decline (in terms of debt,
mortgages that didn't exist before etc.). So just looking at GDP and nominal
value might not tell the whole story as inflation was about the same. It's
probably like laughing at Russia and how much do they spend on army, but
ignoring the costs might be 10x lower than in the US. We in Western Europe
tend to have pretty biased optics when ignoring local realities.

------
rocqua
There is a very simple question here. How much cheaper is this lower quality
food?

I think no-one disputes that the food is lower quality. The question is how
much of a discount this gets, and why stores haven't created more expensive
better quality options.

I recall an item on Dutch news that seemed to state that Romanians wanted the
same products as Austria at a lower price. This is unlikely to be accurate
reporting, because that stance is obviously unreasonable. That is presuming
the desired price differential isn't just reflective of the cost savings by
potentially having lower payed employees.

~~~
izacus
I think the more problematic thing is that the corporations effectively lie -
Milka, Nutella, etc. will have the exact same packaging but notably different
contents. I doubt it would be such a huge issue if the brands would differ,
but effectively saying "eh, those eastern europeans don't deserve the same
amount of chocolate in their Milka!" doesn't stand well with a lot of people.

~~~
charlesdm
"eh, those eastern europeans don't deserve the same amount of chocolate in
their Milka!"

I can't imagine any executive saying that. That makes no sense. Why would
they?

My best guess is that either people are unwilling (or unable) to pay the same
price as their Austrian / Belgian / French counterparts for the same product,
or the cost of selling the same product and doing business in EE is somehow
higher (e.g. due to required kickbacks and high level political corruption)
meaning these companies end up with less profits operating in these countries
and end up taking a shortcut to maintain their profit margins.

Or they actually make more from operating in EE, ending up with higher margins
just because they can. That's also a possibility.

~~~
miskin
OMG, high level of political corruption while selling chocolate to end
customers via (ofter foreign company owned) private retail chains. That is
quite a stereotype at work here.

What I usually see in Vienna is Milka at 0.99Eur price for 100g package.
Slovak price tend to be bit higher at around 1.19Eur for 100g, with 0.99Eur
used as promo price. I never actually bothered to compare ingredients.

Please consider that selling to end customers is selling to certains price
points, regardless the costs to a large degree. Milka is sold as premium
chocolate bar with given price point. There’s plenty of competition both
cheaper and more expensive. This is all about marketing and until recently,
people were not really sensitive to ingredients, so they went with whatever is
cheapest to produce within some margins of customer satisfaction.

So, I think your last statement is what is considered around here to be true.

~~~
charlesdm
Obviously, corruption depends on the country -- Slovakia is not Romania, and
is not Ukraine. Political corruption lives in most western countries as well,
by the way, even if you don't notice it.

But as it happens, I know quite a wealthy family who got scammed for millions
(through a corrupt notary) on a property deal in an EE country. It wasn't even
a business dispute, just a scam.

When they took the matter to court, which should have been a clear "win" case,
the judge(s) (even on appeal) ruled against them, so they had no way to
recover their money. From that point of view, it is not unreasonable for me to
assume corruption can (potentially) play a part of it. :)

~~~
miskin
I’d write something long about corruption in Slovakia, but why should I try.
It is obvious that corruption exists and must be improved, but I’d bet that
this is not the root cause of different ingredients in Milka chocolate. Since
we’re part of EU, there is very little (if anything) that needs to be done
officially to sell food produced in other EU country, so I can hardly imagine
any good reason for rampant corruption. Nobody is even arguing that food that
is sold in EE is non-conforming to health codes (another possible reason for
corruption). People complain that they get treated differently.

Personal anecdote - I visit Austria almost weekly due to business matters and
never bothered to buy anything there just because I would consider it of
better quality. I always assigned any perceived differences to placebo. I
argued that detergent itself, once found and tested, is cheap enough to
produce and most of the cost is marketing, packaging, shipping and profit. So
why on earth would anyone cheat on detergent content. At most, maybe parfumes
would be different due to local preferences etc. But few weeks ago, producers
of laundry detergents reacted to public outcry due to these differences with
answer that in western europe, people tend to wash clothes on 30C, so they put
there much more enzymes (or what) than in EE, where people tend to wash on
40C. Sure they do, when you need to add much more detergent to clean anything
on 30C... So go, figure.

------
nitramm
This issue is known for years - similar article from 2016 -
[http://www.politico.eu/article/a-snack-by-any-other-name-
var...](http://www.politico.eu/article/a-snack-by-any-other-name-varying-food-
standards-irk-new-eu-countries/)

This is article in Czech - [https://www.dtest.cz/clanek-5156/rozdilna-kvalita-
potravin-v...](https://www.dtest.cz/clanek-5156/rozdilna-kvalita-potravin-v-
eu) \- but if you scroll down there is table showing products and you can see
that the worst quality products are sometimes more expensive.

------
kwhitefoot
It's not only Hungary that has yoghurt with flour in it, there are several
brands in the US that bulk the product up with corn starch with the inevitable
and negative effect on the taste and texture. When flying SAS from
Norway/Denmark to Newark I will eat yoghurt on the way to the US but not on
the way back because then they have been supplied with the US version. It's
not that there is no good yoghurt in the US of course it's just that it seems
to be allowed to put stuff in it that doesn't belong so some manufacturers do.

~~~
forinti
It's so easy to make yoghurt, I wonder why most people don't do it. Add jelly,
honey, or whatever you like, and you get something that's better than even the
most fancy brands.

~~~
roel_v
It's easy to make something that looks like yogurt with some milk and yeasts,
but consistently making something that is convenient and tastes as good
(including texture and potential intestinal effects on people sensitive to it)
is far from easy.

Try to buy 10 different yogurts (from a variety of supermarkets and specialty
shops) and do a comparison on taste, texture, propensity to de-emulsify, etc.
You'll find that there is a _very_ wide range.

And try to reproduce that one great yogurt you had somewhere at home. I mean,
I've done the whole comparison above (and many more than 10) in a quest to
replicate the yogurt from The Yogurt Shop in Adelaide's (AU) Central Market
(which, from what I've been able to find, is the way it is because of a
combination of two different yeast strands as well as a specific straining
method they use), and I've tried many, many different ways of making yogurt -
and still fail to make something like it. I mean, I won't call myself an
expert because I don't even have a degree in anything biology or food
production related, but I do have enough experience to say that making (good)
yogurt is not 'easy' \- at least not in the way that it would make sense for
people to do it themselves as anything else than a novelty.

~~~
kwhitefoot
All that is true but I think the OP's point was that it is easy to make
yoghurt, not that it is easy to make some specific type. And it is easy if you
can get hold of a pot of live yoghurt, then all you need to add is warm milk
and patience and you will have something just as good as a lot of the ordinary
supermarket stuff. Of course, yes, it is a bit of a novelty because it isn't
cheaper by a wide enough margin to make the effort worthwhile.

------
baq
A very good example of information and power assymetry in consumer vs
corporation relations.

~~~
valuearb
Why can’t anyone open their own stores in Romania, and just sell quality food
at reasonable prices?

~~~
timthelion
In the Czech Republic, there are Vietnamese people who make their living
buying food in Germany and selling it here. Doing so is illegal. I'm not sure
why.

~~~
valuearb
Find out why it’s illegal and you’ve likely pinpointed the real cause of the
problem.

~~~
ac29
Its probably not illegal necessarily, you can certainly sell imported food.
The way they are doing it is probably illegal (loading up a van with food and
driving it across the border without declaring it/having it inspected/having
permits/etc).

~~~
valuearb
It should be possible to sell the same goods for roughly the same prices
anywhere in the EU. My guess is the problem here is a lack of a demand for
higher quality foodstuffs.

~~~
timthelion
But if the Vietnamese can make money selling German food for more than German
prices (they have to make a profit ;) ) in the Czech Republic, then obviously
demand exists.

------
chx
My brother lives in a town of 8500 in Hungary. That you can't buy food there
is less of an issue but even at Budapest it is such a challenge that he visits
Austria about every three weeks for a large amount of great but affordable
foodstuff. Capitalism did deliver, however: Hungarian people will choose the
cheapest crap too often as they earn a lot less than Western Europeans and so
that's what you can get.

~~~
biztos
I don't really shop at supermarkets in Budapest, but I have friends who do and
who also regularly go to Austria. They swear the better-quality _Hungarian_
produce is sold in the Austrian supermarkets and often for less than the
lower-quality stuff costs in BP.

~~~
chx
We know of a Hungarian sheepherder who sells his lamb meat rather to Austria
and Italy than Hungary. The "for less" is not true, the very reason he sells
it abroad is because no one in Hungary would pay the price he asks for quality
meat.

------
quickben
You are all missing a key point: food additives and misleading advertising.

Here in Canada:

Carrots can have added orange paint, legally disclosed on the packaging.

Yogurt can be from other stuff that milk.

Bread has to be labeled as 'whole granins' if entirely from grains, otherwise
it's still sold as bread.

McDonald's fishburger, isn't made from what is technically a fish.

Bacon bits can be from other things than pork.

Coffee, doesn't have to be from coffee beans.

Things can have taste enhancers, color enhancers, odor enhancers.

They can be sold unripened as ripe.

Etc etc. I can count all day.

When you compare food between continents, you can't ignore the above.

The almighty quest for profit will cost you health.

------
heisenbit
> ‘Salmon is a disgrace’

> One of the biggest culprits is fish - salmon is a disgrace in the Czech
> Republic. It is usually cooled to a point before it freezes, then thawed
> before being passed off as fresh salmon. The cooling data and thawing is
> written on the side of boxes – but the retailers take advantage of the fact
> consumers cannot generally read English-language storage instructions. Savvy
> buyers know to buy goods where labels on products have Czech language labels
> stuck over the original text. This means the product that is sold in western
> markets is identical to the Czech market product.

A lot of the salmon industry is dealing with frozen fish. Some may even argue
frozen fish is safer.

Salmon at the moment has a pest problem so prices go up and customers in
general are feeling they are getting a bad deal.

And then there is the well known fraud passing one fish of as another. This
business is fishy, pun intended and that has nothing to do with being in Czech
when shopping.

Having people who can be quoted with their opinions does not absolve
journalists from providing some perspective. The Guardian should know better.

------
rayiner
This doesn’t make any sense. How do companies get away with shipping lower
quality products to Romania unless Romanians are less quality conscious? If
they weren’t less quality conscious, then companies would be able to do the
same thing in Western Europe.

~~~
1_2__4
Because the consumer doesn’t matter? What exactly are their alternative
options if the only game(s) in town decide to only sell a particular level of
product quality?

Not asking rhetorically. What exactly is it you’re suggesting these “quality
conscious” consumers do?

Markets and naked capitalism as solutions go these issues have proven
ineffective. This article is evidence of it. And all you suggest is some
naive, Econ 101 platitudes.

~~~
roel_v
Let's say there really is a consumer preference for the 'better', Western-
style goods. Why wouldn't there be someone who would drive a truck across the
border a few times a week, marking up his products say 5% (which would be more
than the profits supermarkets make - retail grocers are one 2-3% margins)? I
mean, if people are so desperate, they'd buy his stuff right out of the back
of his truck, right?

The reality is much more nuanced than what you're suggesting. The reality is
that people don't care as much, and that producers aren't as stupid/greedy as
you make them out to be. Their buying patterns are what economists call a
_revealed preference_. Sure, if you ask them, people will all say that they
want the best-quality products. Turns out though (and not just there, but
everywhere) that in reality people want a mix between quality, affordability,
perception, and other things.

(oh, and suggesting that an article in _the Guardian_ of all places is
"evidence" of anything is laughable)

~~~
grimskin
> Why wouldn't there be someone who would drive a truck across the border a
> few times a week, marking up his products say 5%

Because that's illegal?

~~~
roel_v
...what? Why would that be illegal? You realize we're talking about EU member
states here, and what that entails, right?

~~~
grimskin
Huh, I was under impression that there are still some regulations regarding
food imports/export within EU. Apparently, I was wrong.

------
trumpeta
I have lived at various points in my life in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Denmark
and Germany. This issue has been discussed at least since 2006, but I have
never observed a drastic difference between the quality of food, except maybe
things like Salmon, but that seems very clear to me that there is no way
salmon bought in Slovakia is going to be fresh in any sense of the word

~~~
miskin
On one hand, products are measurably different, yet they are “good enough” so
people did not notice/care about it long time. Now when it hit headlines and
people feel cheated.

------
Const-me
Eastern Europe is a big place, and there’re multiple different definitions. I
live in Montenegro. Technically, by some definition it’s also Eastern Europe.

Here, the food quality is awesome.

Imported stuff is the same as in Western Europe. Because local market’s small,
manufacturers don’t bother localizing properly, i.e. you remove a Montenegrin-
language sticker required by law, you’ll likely find “Hergestellt in
Deutschland” underneath.

The large part of groceries are local. Some of them are from Montenegro: fish
(except salmon and a couple other spices not found in Adriatic & not farmed
locally; but freshly caught tuna is IMO better than frozen Norwegian salmon),
wine, seasonal fruits & vegetables. Some is imported from neighbor countries,
of that most is from Serbia (majority of meat and dairy products), some from
Croatia, Macedonia, Italy, Greece or Spain.

------
dogma1138
On the other hand they are in a unified market with fixed fees, are limited in
their ability to import outside of the EU, have little to no direct control
over subsidies and will not be able to afford the same food prices that the
richer countries pay nor do they have the ability to economically grow some
many of the food items in question like the Mediterranean basin European
countries do.

The sad truth is when you are the poor fellow and had given up sovereignty
over the many of the economic tools available to sovereign nation states
you'll get shafted no matter what.

~~~
danmaz74
Maybe you forgot the part where they can export to other EU countries without
any fees and barriers, and this has increased the GDP much faster than their
neighbors outside of the EU (like eg Ukraine, even before the Crimea affair).

~~~
dogma1138
I didn't forget in fact I've specifically mentioned that EU members do not
have full control over their trade policies or tariffs.

This isn't an argument against the EU as a whole it's the reality of the
circumstances.

When both rich and poor countries are forced to import from the same sources
at the same rates which are designed to protect the producers rather then the
consumers the prices rise and they are forced to compete at the price per unit
which also directly translates to the final consumer price.

Bulgaria, Romania or Denmark can't reduce their import tarrifs on tomatoes
from a specific EU country, they can't even control the import tariffs from
non EU countries.

~~~
danmaz74
Bulgaria, Romania or Denmark can't reduce their import tariffs on tomatoes
from a specific EU country... because tariffs between EU countries are already
0. Moreover, only Eurozone countries have fixed exchange rates, the other ones
- which include almost all former Soviet block members - can still change
those rates.

~~~
dogma1138
Having tarrifs at zero is a problem.

You assume that Denmark would enforce the same or lower tarrifs than a poorer
nation on some basic goods.

Smaller nations also can have negative import tarrifs on some goods in order
to allow thier importers to compete with bigger consumers. Which you cannot do
in the EU.

The EU as a whole also has trade agreements with many of the regional non EU
members.

These argeemnts also enforce protective tariffs to reduce the competitiveness
of non EU imports. The EU also requires its trade partners to meet EU
regulations which increase the prices of exports to begin with.

------
synthmeat
I believe root cause at this was (and still is, but reducing) information
asymmetry. Before, it was much harder to have customer data (abstracted as
nodes of graph) to exchange information.

Changes in that information system now manifests in surprise over information
that, previously thought identical products, are not identical by region.

------
bitL
I visited Prague at the beginning of the year; after a week I had stomach
issues from the food I bought at their "Albert" supermarket. It was not as bad
as when I visited Rio de Janeiro, but definitely put a question mark on what
people there have to eat. And the prices were more-less same as in Germany.

~~~
alt_f4
I visited Germany a week ago and had the chance to compare German foods with
what's offered in Eastern Europe. The prices were about the same, some things
(like chocolate and candy) were cheaper. Overall, the quality of food was of
much higher standard.

~~~
towolf
When you visited, did you notice that the Milka you said is 100g here, isn't
anymore?

They even put it into the slogan: "Milka Alpenmilch. Für Mich – Für Dich 80g"

This whole thing to me sounds like the "chemtrail" conspiracy.

[http://www.wz.de/home/wirtschaft/schokolade-100-gramm-
tafel-...](http://www.wz.de/home/wirtschaft/schokolade-100-gramm-tafel-ein-
auslaufmodell-1.1236713) [https://www.milka.de//Produkte/milka-
tafeln-100g?categoryId=...](https://www.milka.de//Produkte/milka-
tafeln-100g?categoryId=1395)

------
org3432
The multional's products sold in western Europe I wouldn't call good quality
food, I think the bigger issue is the produce and fresh goods are not very
good. And honestly the produce isn't that great in Austria either.

------
gumby
> Toilet paper is rough, flimsy and will actually give you paper cuts.

Toilet paper is used in a location where I do NOT want to have a paper cut!

------
peteretep
My understanding was we're still in the "is there any evidence phase?" and
that this is much a thing as Korean Fan Death:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death)

Any evidence?

~~~
rocqua
If I recall correctly, the Romanian food quality authority researched and
published these claims.

------
forfengeligfaen
This is not Hacker News material.

------
5_minutes
Perhaps also the fact that food is costing 1/5th over there in Romania has
something to do with it, for the multinationals.

There just isn't the same base profit to make there compared to, say France.

And I hate to say it, but it's perhaps it's safe to assume, that the French
have a higher culinary tradition then any of the ex Soviet countries, where
people's cuisine was very rudimentary.

Sure there are people shopping abroad, but it's a minority.

The average income in Romania is <$500 (1), so if you want to cater to people
that have little money who want to buy branded products, something's gotta
give.

-

1- [https://www.romaniaexperience.com/what-is-the-minimum-and-
av...](https://www.romaniaexperience.com/what-is-the-minimum-and-average-
salary-in-romania-in-2017/)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> the French have a higher culinary tradition then any of the ex Soviet
> countries

None of the Eastern European countries now in the EU were ever "Soviet", with
the exception of the Baltic countries that were occupied by USSR.

~~~
cat199
Probably meant 'Soviet-bloc'.. but anyway.

The statement still presumes that culinary culture essentially didn't exist
before communist times..

I would wager that pre-wwII food quality in France vs Romania was probably
fairly similar..

