
Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products - Varqu
http://www.businessfondue.com/2018/09/15/which-country-is-famous-for-using-honor-system-yes-its-switzerland
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jandrewrogers
As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being
very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock
their doors. Bartering local goods and services is such an integral part of
the rural social fabric that everyone has an interest in making it work well
with minimal transaction costs.

Part of what makes it work in rural areas is that no one is really anonymous.
The local social networks tend to be very quick to identify bad actors.

~~~
vkou
> As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward
> being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to
> lock their doors

There's a practical reason for that, too. If you're being burglarized in a
rural community, a locked door will be an obstacle for ~10 seconds, and you'll
come home to just as much of your stuff stolen, plus a broken door to deal
with.

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rossdavidh
The book "Freakonomics" details a similar bagel-selling system, where they
would put bagels in the break room of workplaces, and you would pay on the
honor system. After years of collecting data, the owner realized he had been
doing a real-time, real-life experiment on how honest people are. You don't
know WHO took without paying, but you can tell HOW MANY of your bagels were
paid for. There's analysis of how it varies by time of year, type of
workplace, etc. Fascinating.

~~~
mpfundstein
Mind telling tthe findings? :-)

~~~
emiliobumachar
From memory, one thing that surprised me was holidays. Thefts decrease in the
days before a holiday that's basically just a day off for most people, but
thefts increase in the days before a holiday that has a strong tradition for
getting together with the extended family.

~~~
orblivion
"I just spent 400 bucks on Christmas presents. I can't afford to pay for this
bagel." ... ?

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wahlis
Here in Sweden I've noted that some sellers have started adding a Swish-number
for payments. Swish is a Swedish payment service where you basically send
money to a phone number. This is great since the only risk for the seller now
is the produce. The cash can not be stolen.

~~~
lukego
That sounds very Swedish! The nearest I've seen to that in Switzerland was a
farm with a book where you can write your name, address, and how much you owe
them. That was on a slightly larger farm (~100 cows and pigs) that sold
expensive things like cold-cut meat too.

I live in a tourist region of Switzerland and here the local supermarkets
carry local produce e.g. cheeses and sausages bearing the name and address of
the farmer who produced them.

In our village we can buy cheese, eggs, honey, and some preserves by letting
ourselves into the cellar of the local farmer and leaving money in a jar.

~~~
staticautomatic
How bucolic

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sunseb
As a Swiss guy, I must say I only see this in rural areas. It wouldn't work in
big cities like Geneva I think (too many people living in urban areas who
don't respect our wonderful country and that's a shame).

~~~
dontbenebby
This is actually fairly common in rural areas in America too. Maybe someone
sets up a bunch of pumpkins, apples, etc at the end of their driveway (which
in rural America can be measured in KM) and a box to put money in.

~~~
013a
Yeah, this sounds like an article written by someone who lives in a big city
and has never been to rural America. This isn't even uncommon; its pretty darn
standard. Another common, similar thing you see all over (climatically
appropriate) America are fruit orchards where you pay for a bag upfront and
you can fill it as full as you want (or take more than the bag, or not even
pay for the bag if you're dishonest).

~~~
lenkite
Oh this fruit orchard tradition is so wonderful! I remember going on an outing
like this with my friends (We aren't American citizens) and we went absolutely
nuts, going on a binge carrying and eating fruits. (We were really hungry
after a long road trip). We all felt appropriately guilty afterwards and
apologised.

~~~
013a
Oh, trust me; those orchards are a cash cow. There's practically no amount of
fruit you could have taken which would have caused them material damage. Most
of them don't even make most of their money from the fruit; they'll usually
have little shops, or processed fruit goods (jams, syrups), or food, or hay
rides as well. There's one near me that does the fruit-stuff during the
summer, then converts into a haunted farm-type attraction in the fall, and the
owner says they make a ton more money in the fall season. The "pick your own
fruit" is just to get people in the door, and they usually overcharge like
crazy for the bags under the assumption that their customers (A) are gonna
take a ton, and (B) will end up buying some other stuff on-site.

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jt2190
Even retail establishments with staff and security systems balance the extra
costs of these “loss prevention” measures against customer convenience. The
goal is never _perfect_ security but _sufficient_ security. Large retailers
typically set targets on loss and try to minimize them, within reason. Farm
stands that operate like this have simply found a reasonable cost/benefit
trade off. (There’s an apple orchard near Boston that leaves their store
unattended for the slow winter months... My wife pops in a few times to buy
some more apples.)

~~~
vram11
Loss from stealing was called 'shrinkage' by retail industry people, in Sam
Walton's autobiography 'Made in America'. As you say, they expected to have
some. I wonder why it can't be prevented 100%.

~~~
rootusrootus
Because stopping retail theft 100% requires an inconvenience to normal
customers that is off-putting and will cause them to go somewhere else.

~~~
canofbars
I certainly wouldn't shop somewhere that required my bags and pockets to be
searched every time I left the store.

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test1235
Honesty boxes are common here in UK countryside too. Same as any country tho',
it probably wouldn't work in the towns and cities.

I guess the number of people in a city make it more likely that there'd be
enough 'cheaters' to ruin the whole enterprise and not make it worthwhile.

~~~
canofbars
You also have enough customers that having someone manage the store doesn't
cost very much per sale.

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hirundo
I ran into this in California at a small farm along Highway 1 a few miles
north of Santa Cruz. It's a scenic ocean side rural locale but near all the
big Bay Area cities and frequented by day visitors from there. There was a
shack with a good variety of their produce laid out, with price labels. Up
front there was a cash box, with about $40 already in it, and a sign that said
pay here. This was late '90s. I really hope that it continued to work for them
for a long time after that. I haven't seen that elsewhere before or since. I
overpaid as a tip. I hope that happens enough to offset cheats.

~~~
gmac
In rural south west England, on holiday last year, the well-stocked local farm
shop operated not only an honesty box, but an honesty credit card machine,
with detailed instructions how to put a transaction through. The merchant
receipt went in the honesty box, of course. I was astonished but pretty
pleased, because I was low on cash and far from any ATM.

~~~
Symbiote
PayM would be the easy implementation of this, it's the generic mobile phone
based bank transfer system for the UK.

In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland the same shop would have a phone number.
You type the phone number into the app (which shows the name as confirmation),
the amount, and press send. It's not tied to any particular bank.

Unfortunately, the UK system isn't really catching on. Instead, my friends
seem to be using proprietary apps which only work for friends at the same
bank.

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WalterBright
My first exposure to the honor system was at Caltech. It worked very well
there, and it was really nice to not have to obsessively lock your dorm room
door every time you walk out.

I've since used the honor system in my business dealings, and it works well
enough to allow me to continue with it.

~~~
Stratoscope
One of the reasons this worked so well at Caltech was that every freshman's
first night included an introduction to lock picking.

If you locked your door, you might expect a polite note like "I noticed your
door was locked. Thanks, it gave me a chance to test my lock picking skills."

~~~
WalterBright
When I attended in the 70's, lock picking was there but wasn't much of a big
deal. The protocol was: door is open, come on in. Door is closed, don't come
in. As simple as that.

My favorite was the bathroom, which had a sign on it with a rotating pointer,
and 4 quadrants labelled:

1\. men

2\. women

3\. don't know

4\. don't care

where you selected one on entry. For the 70s, it was way ahead of its time :-)

~~~
stordoff
> door is open, come on in. Door is closed, don't come in

Same protocol at Cambridge (UK), at least in the rooms with two doors (outer
door open: come in, outer door closed: do not disturb/I'm out). Lock picking
wasn't really a thing, but one of the tutors did point out to us that the
locks in a specific corridor could be opened by sliding a knife down the edge
of the mechanism (it was "fixed" by screwing a steel plate to the _outside_ of
the door, which felt like missing the point somewhat).

I'm possibly missing something obvious, but could you explain why you'd need
to pick a quadrant? I'm not seeing why that is necessary.

~~~
WalterBright
The purpose was to temporarily, while you were in the bathroom, say what kind
of bathroom it was.

If you don't care who else uses it while you're in there, dial "don't care".
If a man dialed "women" and went in, he'd likely face some angry students. To
my knowledge that never happened.

------
interurban
Like several other commenters noted, these types of roadside stands are
prevalent throughout rural areas of the US. You usually only see them on side
roads though, if you're just passing through on the highways you'll miss them.

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dliff
I was recently in Zurich and entered a small shop that was honor system. Scan
and pay for your own items, no staff. Small food items, drinks, wine
available.

Might be different since there could be cameras or some other form of
accountability, but I found it interesting.

~~~
jopsen
Would police every bother investigating simple theft from such a store..

Even if there is excellent video and identification?

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amayne
I’ve seen this in the US in rural parts of Georgia.

~~~
beauzero
Yep...I agree it works well here and let's you farm while holding down another
job. You can get "vine ripened" and the flavor it much better. It also is more
efficient for spoilage. Hogs or chickens get it right after it is too ripe.

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jMyles
Last year we found a place on the Oregon coast that had a little freezer with
Salmon and Halibut. Also a table with Cherries, Peaches, and a few vegetables
with an honor box and, interestingly we thought, QR codes to accept BTC and
ETH.

Halibut was killer, but I paid in USD because my phone was dead.

~~~
selimthegrim
Haha can I get a +/\- 10 mi general area to not kill the goose?

~~~
jMyles
On the 101, South of Garibaldi, North of Lincoln City. :-)

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moroleth
In Paris pavements are routinely lined with stacks of books, magazines,
comics, etc. The idea being 'you take some, you leave some. Or just take, at
least the books will find some use.' I've seen it abroad so it's probably
widespread.

Slightly more tangential, but people also often leave furniture (or clothes)
they don't need outside for the taking, often because they're moving places.
You notify the municipality, put up a post-it with a number on it so that they
can eventually identify and carry the stuff away if it finds to takers, but in
the meantime other people are free to help themselves. I have friends who
would completely furnished their apartment with furniture found on the street.

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BurningFrog
This is a sign of a deeply trust based society.

I don't think articles like these are good for the system's health :)

~~~
yborg
You really think a significant number of people are going to get on a plane to
Switzerland and then drive to Vaud to steal pumpkins?

~~~
BurningFrog
I there are always marginal effects, as an economist would put it.

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kenneth
Growing up in Switzerland, when we lived on the outskirts of Bern, we would
get our milk from such a dispenser at a farm. It was a 5min walk to the farm,
and we'd bring our own bottle and fill it up from a spout. The milk was fresh
and unpasteurized, so we'd have to leet it sit in the fridge for a few hours
to separate it from its cream.

~~~
justwalt
Wow. How does it compare to the store bought milk of today?

~~~
kenneth
It's not even in the same universe in terms of quality. Although it went bad
way quicker, so you had to drink it in a day or so max.

------
chabes
This is more common than you might think in rural areas in California

~~~
Theodores
Once upon a time I cycled through vast fields of strawberries and other yummy
looking produce in California.

I did see honour system stalls but they were pretty rare considering the size
of the area. They were more like curious exceptions rather than the norm. They
were also geared up to sell at volumes that didn't suit the bike, so too much
to carry.

I got the impression from the article on Switzerland that this was more of a
way to do your shopping, so sensible quantities not vast bulk purchases.

Incidentally I did not stop to freeload a single strawberry. On a bike with
nobody around this should have been simple, there weren't even any barbed wire
fences. However, my riding buddy - also a non-American tourist - was not so
keen. The reason why was a simple one - 'don't they have guns in America?'.

Actually they have guns in Switzerland too and there is a lot of national
service practice going on at the weekends. In fact weekends are quite
wonderful in Switzerland as the shops are closed and people go out and do
things including going to honour system stalls. The guns though are quite
terrifying if you are cycling as you can turn a corner on a descent and feel
like you are suddenly in a firing range (rather than right next to one).

I have to say that the Californian produce looked good but was not that good
when I bought it in the shops. The land of plenty turned out to be quite
expensive and bland to European tastes. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the
roadside appearance of plenty was not so good but the food bought in shops was
as expensive as everything is in Switzerland (so no surprise) but delightful
to taste.

The relative abundance of Swiss roadside honour stalls doesn't just say things
about how honest people are in squeaky clean Switzerland, it also says
something about the produce being of value rather than bland.

~~~
polotics
So this! The lovely clicky sound of rifle bullets passing by above your head
as you stroll on well signposted paths. I understand they do have concrete
blocks preventing beginners from shooting too low. Still...

------
gingabriska
Once I broke the signal in Switzerland and outran the cops sent back the car
to the countryside and took bus to the hotel just to find the traffic ticket
waiting for me in the room I booked.

I am still not sure how they knew where I am going and which hotel I'll be
staying at.

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lazyjones
Mapping where such systems actually work well would produce the best "quality
of life" guide for me. It just takes a few bad apples to break these forever
and communities in their naivety often don't notice until it's too late.

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omnibrain
Here in southern germany ots of farmers sell Apples and other fruit (and
sometimes vegetables) this way. Some also have fields of flowers where you can
cut some and pay at a honor box. Though generally you put your money in a
heavily bolted down box through a narrow slit.

In Scotland, especially on the Hebrides I saw various types of honor stalls.
One sold all kinds of food, prepared and unprepared even warm pies, another
one was just a Box with cakes, brownies and muffins and some thermos with tea
and coffee and some dishes placed at a POI. In both cases you put your money
just into a carboard box, so you could even get change.

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yborg
Also found in rural Japan.

[https://en.japantravel.com/saitama/honesty-
shops/59159](https://en.japantravel.com/saitama/honesty-shops/59159)

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bufferoverflow
You have to understand that Switzerland is a very rich and very expensive
country. Stealing some fruits would be a really dumb crime to commit, when you
can steal much more expensive things easily.

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csomar
> Unmanned stalls with vegetables can be found all over the world. Germany,
> Norway, the U.S., Australia, Canada, the UK are among the countries where
> the honor system isn’t any novelty.

This seems to be a property of the rural community rather than the
country/people. The same happens in Tunisia in some very rural/remote places.
The farmer will put their produce on the road, and then the buyers will
collect from the road.

This was a surprise to me as Tunisia cities are plagued with vandalism and
property theft.

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thrower123
Any place with a high trust society tends to do this. I see farm stands and
camp wood stands with honor boxes all over rural New England.

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mruts
Seems to me that the farmers will need to charge a premium to make up for
theft, assuming that the total amount stolen is greater than the cost of
someone sitting there.

For rural areas where turnover is low and where there’s more trust, this
system sounds pretty effective.

On a side note, this isn’t exactly an honor system, as the cash is still
locked away I’m guessing.

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aloukissas
Very similar situation in Ikaria (Greece) -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-
where...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-
forget-to-die.html)

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tomcam
Very common here in Western Washington (Microsoft country). We get honey,
flowers, and produce that way

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tapvt
Very common in rural New England as well. This may be common in many other
rural areas, I’d guess.

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PopeDotNinja
I saw one of these in Washington State in October 2016, and I thought it was
super cool. I bought some sweet corn and BBQ sauce :)

[https://imgur.com/a/wmka5yA](https://imgur.com/a/wmka5yA)

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Varqu
A video of how those look inside:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwyPEFC4Tsk&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwyPEFC4Tsk&feature=youtu.be&t=4)

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okennedy
This phenomenon isn't unique to Switzerland, or even Europe. Farmstands
throughout Western NY and PA have similar setups: Grab some fresh fruits,
veggies, eggs, etc... and leave your cash in the box.

------
muro
I've seen some in Germany (e.g. Pick flowers, put coins into the box), but I
like the ones I found in Switzerland more - larger selection including fruit,
vegetables and eggs. Maybe I just got lucky.

------
simonebrunozzi
There's a farm stall in Bolinas, California that sells produce with the honor
system. It's the first one I've encountered in my life.

I had no idea this was much more widespread.

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JoshMnem
It's also like that in the Massachusetts countryside.

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NoInputSignal
I've seen this with firewood in California. It probably costs the producer
more to have someone there then it does losing a portion of stock to theft.

~~~
ghaff
It's very common with firewood bundles in areas of New England where, in the
summer, a lot of tourists are buying firewood to burn at a campground. Quite a
few houses have some bundles of firewood out that they probably cut themselves
from dead trees/branches on the property along with an honor box. Very small-
time supplemental income operations that aren't nearly worth someone hanging
out all day for maybe only $20 or so.

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antpls
How does that actually work ? It takes only one thief to steal the entire box
of payments.

Do they have hidden camera to dissuade people of stealing the box ?

------
duxup
This isn't that unusual at roadside stands I see in some rural places in the
US.

If someone isn't there they just leave a box or bucket with a sign.

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ptspts
Some of them provide free tasting as well: small glasses and many open bottles
so that the customer can try all flavors before buying one.

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gumby
Not sure what’s so extraordinary about this — I’ve used such rural systems in
France, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the USA.

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cromulent
They used to have this in Finland too, but it seems to be dying out. Such a
shame, but I guess it is inevitable.

~~~
goto11
Why are they dying out?

~~~
duality
Very likely different forms of "lower social cohesion."

~~~
tom_
What, if anything, do the quotation marks mean here?

~~~
somatic
never relax

------
tathougies
I've driven extensively in California, Hawaii, and other western states, and
this is extremely common.

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rv-de
in many German offices you may find the Snackbox
([http://www.snackbox.de/](http://www.snackbox.de/)). it's based on trust
based payment and they'll cover the difference. i genuinely love those
concepts.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
This happens all over rural southwestern ontario as well.

I never thought it was strange or newsworthy as a result.

~~~
gorbypark
Yeah, I really miss the road side corn from back home.

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dnautics
I just came across and patronized an honor system farm stand in Bolinas Ca
yesterday.

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myrandomcomment
There a a few places off of summit rd. In NorCal that do the same thing.

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macmac
Very common in Denmark too.

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sonnyblarney
They have this in Ontario.

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blfr
This is what high trust society looks like.

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_bxg1
> the U.S...[is] among the countries where the honor system isn’t any novelty.

I've seen plenty of roadside stands, but I've never seen one of these in my
life

------
bookofjoe
I saw these in rural New Zealand in 1982.

~~~
khuey
They're still there in 2019.

------
lruor
The honor system was also used in World of Warcraft:
[https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0)](https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Honor_system_\(pre-2.0\))

