Organic & Vegetarian Food Prices in Barcelona
I went to Veritas in Barcelona yestarday on via Laeitana and was looking for some tasty vegetarian food to buy for the week. They have done the place up nicely, although it now looks rather more like your average brightly-lit supermarket, and less like the inviting and homely cavern of veggie and organic goodies of the past.
So as they are now more like a supermarket, can we expect cheaper prices? Can we hell.
My girlfriend asked me for the money to buy an apple. I gave her a euro. We both discussed how much we thought this single apple would cost. My girlfriend said 70c and I said 90c.
We were both wrong. One single apple cost 1 euro!!!!! We were absolutely disgusted with this outrage. How they can have the nerve to charge the prices they do is totally beyond me. Ok, I understand that organic techniques are a little more expensive than non-organic ones, but who buys this stuff?
Often, the profile of your average vegetarian is someone with a social conscience - perhaps a little crusty, hippie, animal-loving in nature and maybe a hint of socially-aware, anti-capitalist ethics thrown in for free. This group has never been in the high-income bracket and probably never will be. So how on earth are they going to afford to pay the prices that the likes of Veritas charge? 2 veggie burgers - 5€. 400g of tofu - 3.50€. 1 chunk of 350g seitan - nearly 4€.
These products are what they are: vegetables, with a few spices, served up in plastic packet. There is no justification whatsoever for the elevated prices, except to rip off the paying public. How comes you can buy 500g of tofu for 90c in the chinese supermarkets? How comes you can go to India and buy a veggie burger for a few pence? (200 veggie burgers bought at Veritas, and you've even got your flight to New Delhi). Why does it cost about a euro to make 30 veggie burgers at home?
Someone needs to start asking these questions, because for many of us, being a veggie is not about a trendy fad which looks good to our mates. It's about a response to the abhorrent treatment of animals and an industry which is in desperate need of a total ban. So let's come together. Let's refuse to pay these ridiculous prices. Let's buy all our products at the places that don't rip us off. Or let's make our substitutes at home.
Enough is enough.
So as they are now more like a supermarket, can we expect cheaper prices? Can we hell.
My girlfriend asked me for the money to buy an apple. I gave her a euro. We both discussed how much we thought this single apple would cost. My girlfriend said 70c and I said 90c.
We were both wrong. One single apple cost 1 euro!!!!! We were absolutely disgusted with this outrage. How they can have the nerve to charge the prices they do is totally beyond me. Ok, I understand that organic techniques are a little more expensive than non-organic ones, but who buys this stuff?
Often, the profile of your average vegetarian is someone with a social conscience - perhaps a little crusty, hippie, animal-loving in nature and maybe a hint of socially-aware, anti-capitalist ethics thrown in for free. This group has never been in the high-income bracket and probably never will be. So how on earth are they going to afford to pay the prices that the likes of Veritas charge? 2 veggie burgers - 5€. 400g of tofu - 3.50€. 1 chunk of 350g seitan - nearly 4€.
These products are what they are: vegetables, with a few spices, served up in plastic packet. There is no justification whatsoever for the elevated prices, except to rip off the paying public. How comes you can buy 500g of tofu for 90c in the chinese supermarkets? How comes you can go to India and buy a veggie burger for a few pence? (200 veggie burgers bought at Veritas, and you've even got your flight to New Delhi). Why does it cost about a euro to make 30 veggie burgers at home?
Someone needs to start asking these questions, because for many of us, being a veggie is not about a trendy fad which looks good to our mates. It's about a response to the abhorrent treatment of animals and an industry which is in desperate need of a total ban. So let's come together. Let's refuse to pay these ridiculous prices. Let's buy all our products at the places that don't rip us off. Or let's make our substitutes at home.
Enough is enough.
posted by Dave Griffiths at
3:50 AM
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