Finally somone who understands how to approximate how cheap stuff actually is. My recent rage was about starbucks, my girlfriend likes the chai latte there and we went for a cappuccino and chai latte. It was my first time there. The prices are INSANE and the place was stuffed with people. My cappuccino cost something about 6€ the chailatte even more.
Some week later i realized that the chailatte there is probably not even a real brewed tea. We found chai latte sirup of the company monin that tastes exactly like the McDonalds version of chai latte. So Starbucks is selling hot milk with a shot of sirup for >6€. Its crazy!
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
This is ignoring labor costs and possible artisan experience, depending on where you buy bread. Also funny because paying $2 for a kg of flour would be a crazy scam; that’s more expensive than even the some of the fancier flour brand
titanicx@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
His whole argument ignores labor costs.
rumba@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
Yes and no. Labor costs are being ignored, but they’re not all that significant. If you add in even a relatively high minimum wage, the cost blurs out with any volume. Whether you cost them $7 for an hour or $14 is just the difference of a single wasted meal at current prices.
Profit and Loss sheets are messy. They’re paying back of house, front of house, a manager, power, maintenance and rent, but then they’re making dozens of meals an hour. They’re paying 1/10 of the cost for raw ingredients.
Herein lies the rub:
In 2018, a fast food meal at a number of places for 4 ran about $30-$40; currently, it’s closer to $60.
Tacobell still sells a meal for less than $7 with a drink and enough food to satiate an obese II adult. It’s gone up maybe $1.50 since 2018.
Selection and quality have gone down. Most places have been understaffed since covid, they’re paying less in wages, value menus are disappearing.
It would seem that a bunch of places took opportunities to raise their prices until the lines dissapeared. I remember a time, not long ago, if you went to a drive-through around dinner, you were going to be there for a while. McDonalds put in second lanes in most stores to handle the load.
I don’t think I’ve been in a fast food line with more than 2 cars in a few years.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 20 minutes ago
Wow there is so much wrong with your statement I don’t even know where to begin. I’m just going to stay at the obvious that you can still obviously feed a family of four for $40 or less. I know that because I have a family of four and weed out a lot and I’m very aware of pretty much all of the fast food costs. Well yes there are some that can definitely be $50 $60 or more I can definitely buy meals for everybody to be satiated for $40 or less even. Hell when I’m trying to save money I can’t even go a little as low as 20 bucks at a number of different places. And also I’m a business owner and so there are a ton of cost involved besides labor as you mentioned there and the cost of raw materials for food is definitely higher than 1/10 of the cost of what the food is itself. Usually you’re dealing with maybe 20 to 30% and that is being spread over the cost of everything else included there.
saimen@feddit.org 6 hours ago
Every cost is labour cost in the end. It’s a bit off topic but was a interesting realisation for me. Every time you pay something you pay for another human’s labour in the end.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 hours ago
nope. you also pay for the right to extract materials out of the ground (mining rights). that is typically a tax, paid to the state or local community.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
When you pay rent. When you pay the bank. Most of paying is for labor, yes, a crazy amount more than most people realize. But the wealthy skim some off the top, and that portion isn’t paying for labor.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
Not only that, but you have to pay for their knowledge and expertise. Can my son do my job? Sure, because I trained him. Can he do it as good as I? Not even close, nor can he do it near as fast. When we go someplace that has a higher cost, but, let’s just talk food, the quality of cooking, technique, etc is better, it’s worth the extra cost, to a point. There is definitely the pay me more mentality in many places, but there is also definitely value in much of it.
Let’s talk chicken. If you offer me a butchered chicken done by someone that was hired last week and it’s being paid as such, compared to one that was prepared by a person that has been doing it for 10 years, but there was a 10 or 20% cost difference, it would be well worth it to pay more to make sure the job was done correctly.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
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rumba@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
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Or less fancy commercial flour 25lbs for less than $10 from Costco.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 4 hours ago
Yeah, but where am I gonna keep that much flour in my tiny kitchen?
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
Case in point. If you’re buying a 2 pound flour bag you’re scamming yourself lol