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I’m not a farmer, I’m not a baker, I’m just a bread eater, but even I knew that 1kg was way too much wheat for a single loaf of bread. Turns out, yup. 1kg makes 2 loaves.
How does that change things? Well it means a loaf of bread contains 12.5p of flour, not 25p. So, instead of a loaf from a grocery store being about 5x as much as the price of the flour it contains, it’s 10x as much.
Having said that, This isn’t just a “capitalism” thing. There are many steps between the farmer selling raw wheat and a loaf of bread appearing on a store shelf. Many of them are unchanged since ancient times. I’m sure baker in the Middle Ages charged enough for his loaves of bread that he’d make a reasonable profit and that was centuries before capitalism was a thing.
In the modern world there are different facilities for every step. There’s transportation which costs something at multiple stages. There’s winnowing and milling the flour. There’s buying and shipping the other ingredients. There’s mixing the dough. There’s baking the dough. There’s packaging (and possibly slicing) the bread. And finally, there’s the grocery store. To be useful, a grocery store basically has to be in a built-up area, which means high real-estate and related costs. It also needs to make enough margin to pay people to stock the shelves and cashiers to sell the loaves. The only truly modern part from all that that didn’t exist in the Middle Ages is sales and marketing. Paying to send out emails or a flyer or whatever to advertise their items. My guess is that most of those steps operate on razor thin margins and make up for it by doing huge quantities.
Now, it’s true that the system has flaws and inefficiencies. One glaring example is the lack of competition at many stages in many countries. In Canada, there are so few grocery store chains that the existing ones were able to literally fix the price of bread. So, of course when that happens both customers and farmers get squeezed.
I wonder if there ever was a “golden age of farming” when farming was a comfortable lifestyle. It seems to me that it has always been a very difficult career. If anything, it’s probably at its best now under “capitalism”. That isn’t to say it’s an easy job now, just that as difficult and stressful as it is now, it was even worse in the past.
It would be interesting though, just as an intellectual exercise, to imagine a perfectly fair world to figure out what the perfectly fair ratio is between the price of wheat and the price of a loaf of bread on the store shelf. If everybody were paid the exact same rate for their labour, and there were no excess profits generated that went to owners / landlords, how much of the final price of a loaf of bread on a store shelf should come from the raw ingredients of wheat, water, yeast, oil? How much goes to the baker? How much to the delivery drivers? How much to the shelf stockers and cashiers? Imagine it’s a wood-fired oven, how much of the price of a loaf of bread goes to a lumberjack, even though their involvement in the whole process is really indirect?
I wonder if there ever was a “golden age of farming” when farming was a comfortable lifestyle. It seems to me that it has always been a very difficult career.
If I look at my own family - my English quarter were all farmers and they did OK. They lived to a ripe old age (my gggg-grandmother died of “senility of age”, she just got old and something stopped working) and had many children, all living in pretty flexible multi-generational units that allowed a flexibility to take in waifs and strays (an illegitimate child could work the land just as well as anyone else, so a grandparent or uncle would always find room for them). A ggggg-grandfather found himself at 63 with his wife and 7 or 8 kids dead, so he married a much younger woman and got a similar number of kids. He died at the age of 79. His grandfather died in 1767 at the age of 84. His father died in 1746 at the age of 90 (although he was a priest).
Meanwhile on my Dad’s side, all his great-grandparents were born in Ireland and all his grandparents were born in Liverpool. The majority of his male ancestors from those generations died nasty deaths in their thirties, largely because the Industrial Revolution ground such people up and oiled the machinery of progress with their blood (literally so for his maternal grandfather).
So farming would have been a tough job but it was preferable to a lot of the urban options.
He’s not the sharpest egg in the attic, is he?
Well Jeremy, somebody makes bread out of it.
According to Past Clarkson, if Current Clarkson can’t make good money farming then Current Clarkson shouldn’t be a farmer. Simple as that.
And that is because Current Clarkson is the worst farmer … in the world.
Incomplete picture, need prices on the transport of the wheat, processing it into flour for bread use, transporting the flour to the bakery, bakery electric to run ovens, labor to run ovens, machines (probably) that slice and bag the bread, and trucks/drivers to distribute it to retailers, and the retailer’s labor/overhead. All of that factors in the price from “wheat” to “bread,” sure nobody in that chain is selling for a loss and they all make profit, but even if everyone operated at cost it’s still going to be more expensive in “bread” state than “wheat” state for the simple fact that even if everyone “does it for cost” it will still add more to do more things to the product.
If he said “we sell wheat for 25p/kg and the store resells that same package of wheat for 1.40,” he may have a point. Even then the point is “sell directly to end users and cut out the middle man then.” Hell if buying weed has taught me one thing it’s that the more people touch it the more expensive it gets, always get as close as you can to the distributor and buy in bulk.
You are completely correct.
But that doesn’t mean the price is always right.
Here in Belgium we had a year where the electricity was 6x more expensive. They changed the bread prices from around €2.20 to around €2.80 because of that (no idea why). Now the electricity has its normal price again, but the breads are still the same price.
This is the part of the whole thing that pisses me off the most. They’ll use anything to justify an increase but never ever bring it back down.
Everyone is poorer for it except the assholes can never get enough.
Dont forget the farmers are being subsidized by the government so they have little risk. But noone seems to take note of that.
Proof positive that doing drugs prepares you for the world better than head-in-the-sand conservatism! Party on.
Add to that, who thinks it takes 1Kg of wheat to make a single loaf of bread?
Weed is how yanks learn about the metric system
Honestly, I fucking like Clarkson.
Is he sometimes obnoxious? Yeah. Wrong? Definitely.
But like the role he’s playing he’s playing fucking amazingly. He’s an entertainment person who doesn’t have an entirely closed mind even though there’s definitely a lot of shit in it. And he isn’t overly political. Like he understands he can influence opinions a bit but he would never try to become a real politician. Would he?
He’s a racist, he assaults people over sandwiches and is a vile, right wing piece of shit. Glad you’re a fan of that.
Glad you’re a fan of that.
No, I’m not a fan of “that.” I said I like Clarkson. I can like a pesron and disagree with them. If he was genuinely trying to be some sort of politican then I wouldn’t, but now he’s more or less just an average tier UK media personality.
Like I said, he’s often obnoxious and wrong. But aside from punching that guy at BBC and being ideologically stuck in the 90’s (which he basically does more or less for humour, but you can’t do that for humour all the time without believing in it a little.)
I don’t know. I get sort of nostalgia from laughing with that rude cunt. And I do mean “with” more than “at”.
He gives sort of the vibes I had when I was little kid and dad still seemed cool. He turned out to be a somewhat stubborn pseudointellectual very stuck in conservative ways and not at all open minded. Compared to my late dad, Clarkson is pretty openminded.
I have no real opinion on Clarkson, but you’re wasting your time with that poster. Some people just refuse to acknowledge the ability to separate good and bad things.
I’m content with the idea that all my time spent on Lemmy is wasted. I’m just commenting for the sake of commenting
Idk. I live around vile, right wing peices of shit so I see and have to interact with them daily. I’ve seen some real nasty stuff. And I’m not saying everything Clarkson says is great and right, b he is pretty fun to watch even if I am rooting against him most the time.
Literally the whole time I warch his farming show I’m rooting for Caleb while calling Clarkson an idiot. Like I said, I don’t know why it’s entertaining, but I believe OP is correct
Social media is racist too, but apparently you’re a fan of it since you use it, so you must like racism. Just using your own logic. Maybe climb down off your pulpit mate.
He’s very likable, at least on that show, which is the first time I’ve really watched him. He’s far from a mere host, he really digs in and works.
Sometimes of Top Gear and The Grand Tour (although I’ve not watched all of them but anyway) it was hilarious how far he would actually go to avoid working. Like sometimes he’d put more effort into avoiding something that would’ve been rather trivial.
What’s the one time he dragged a log behind his Mercedes in Africa for some reason or another and then it ofc eventually tangled, bounced and hit him square in the back glass.
Oh right, it was his “handbrake.”
Like honestly fixing the handbreak prolly would’ve been less work at least in general. AT least for the crew, accounting for the broken window and cleaning and whatnot.
https://youtu.be/kDmbABVFZIA?si=1kZSNcspLclRYtry
Oh wait, he actually says himself “stupidest idea in history.” I guess that’s the part I like. He does stupid shit confidently, announcing it’s brilliant, but when it inevitably goes wrong, he can laugh at himself and admit he was actually wrong. And yet go to the next stupid idea and do that with the same confidence as earlier. I find it amusing.
“Mind you I’m just a simple country farmer, but…”
- Transporting the grain from the field to the mill.
- Milling
- Transporting flour (and at least 3 other ingredients) from the mill to the bakery
- Baking, packaging
- Transporting the bread from the bakery to the supermarket
- Running the supermarket.
Turns out there is a difference between raw wheat and bread. More news at 8.
When farmers get paid too little for their effort, making these wild comparisons isn’t helping. It seems we’re about a year away from the conclusion “I stubbed my toe. This must be capitalism’s fault.”
- You do not need entire kilo of wheat to make one loaf of bread
That depends on the bread size? From a quick survey of bread recipes online, you need flour and water in a ratio of about 2:1 to 2:1.5. So 1kg of flour gives 1.5kg–1.75kg of dough. I don’t know how much water evaporates during backing, but I think an end product of 1.25kg–1.7kg is a reasonable guess. That’s about a standard sized loaf (to me).
Shovelloaf
And items like Bread and Milk are commonly loss leaders - their priced at a loss or a minimal profit margin by the larger retailers that can afford to make a loss to profit richly elsewhere.
Staples like bread and milk are highly price competitive because there is so much choice - choice in brands but more importantly choice in which supermarket customers go to.
That price pressure goes down the entire production chain. Big companies like Warburtons and Hovis can still profit asbthey benefit from economies of scale, as do the supermarket chains. Big farms also benefit from economies of scale to profit. At every level the small players - farmers, independent bakeries and small retailers struggle to make any profit at all. And at every level wages are kept down.
This is capitalism.
What did you stub your toe on? Under which economic system was that object produced? Open your eyes, sheeple!
Whoa whoa go back to sleep you’re woke now
Don’t understand how he can be part of this industry and not understand it at all.
Or he does understand and is playing a victim. Second is more likely.
The second one for sure. But i would also argue that Clarkson himself is only part of the industry to some degree, because primarily he is still in the (quite successful) business of producing television. And while he is certainly learning stuff the actual act of running a farm is still primarily done by others.
On the practical farming side by Kaleb and on the business side by Charlie, who in this case would be the one understanding how the economics between 25p/kg weat and 1.25£ for a loaf of bread work.
I think you’ve got a valid point there. I would also say Clarkson is very “me me me”.
Yeah, this is the guy who successfully played victim when he got fired for punching someone in the face. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Yup. I remember it well.
Did you see the interview during the farmers protest where he got upset that the interviewer pointed out he’d only bought the farm to dodge IHT?
It’s actually kind of crazy all of the rest of that happens for £1.25
Now if we do insulin in the USA, it won’t make so much sense. Capitalism!
Mass production and its effect on unit cost is amazing sometimes. But what is also lost is the transactions between each of those steps. Usually the ones that farm aren’t the ones milling, baking, packaging, etc., so there are layers to consider as well, all reducing the unit prices because of the large scale.
What about potatoes?
Those are needed to power the farm computers.
I’ve not watched anything this person has been in, but every time I see him sharing his thoughts and opinions in publication he seems like a genuinely incurious, blathering moron.
Now imagine him shouting “SPEED!” and “POWER!” a bunch and being totally stubborn and you’ve got about 90% of his TV work
He’s also a racist and assaults people over sandwiches
oh nice, fuck him then edit: ha! looks like I hurt a racist’s feelings; guess what, fuck you too.
This is the man who punched somebody in the face when service workers went home and he was huuuungy
Shoulda grabbed a Snickers.
Funny how THIS incident was a big deal but everyone ignored his years of racist comments
This dumbass was happy that government was paying him not to do anything with his land for that show he had called Clarkson’s Farm or something. I wonder when it started to hurt him so he started to pay attention…
In the show, he started farming as a little side project during the pandemic. But he realised how much it sucked and how hard it was for people for which it is the sole source of income.
He’s tried to help his neighbours with the shops and restaurants. I don’t know how much of it is propaganda or not, but it seems genuine given his recent public statements about it.
If a stubborn bastard like Clarkson can change his mind about stuff like that, it’s always good.
I didn’t say anything bad about his recent statements. I’ve yet to see anything real and tangible from his alleged efforts. While he was happy to accept such grants of doing nothing with joy. To me he is nothing but a TV personality and nothing about him is genuine. He literally did a Trump move on his latest interview where he asked the TV reporter what percentage is paying inheritance tax and she said 4% and he run with 96% of the people is having difficulties and shit. And when the same reporter asked where he get his numbers he asked his lackeys who is not effected? He is in my eyes nothing but an attention seeking bastard. Because he is talking loud but doing nothing real.
The real and tangible thing from his efforts is the slow itself. Regardless of his motives or wherever or not you like the guy, his show has actually raised a lot of awareness of how much farmers have struggled in the UK. He makes it very clear that the only reason he can afford to run the farm at all is because of the money from the show and he doesn’t know how other farmers are surviving - which in many cases they aren’t.
However he is also banging on about inheritance tax, which has nothing to do with whether real farmers can make ends meet and everything to do with rich, tax-dodge farmers like himself.
It’s entirely possible to disagree with him on one thing he says while agree with him on others.
You’re fighting a strawman you made up buddy. I’m talking about his own and how he acted. If you don’t like it I suggest you check yourself and let me know if I was misleading about my claims.
Holy mackerel, that was hard to read. The next time you post something, I’d recommend reading it out loud to yourself before hitting that submit button.
He made millions via Amazon, he’s farm never hurt his wallet.
He is farm? Hahahah
It seems you’re ignorant of what greed is…
Clarkson is going to Waitrose to get fancy bread. Aldi sell it for 45p. 25p to the farmer leaves just 20p which is split between transport, processing and what ever profit Aldi are taking out of it.
Clarkson not knowing the price of bread is one hardly a surprise.
Wait your bread is literally less than a pound? It’s like $4 here in Canada for shitty wonderbread and $5.50 for the fancy “baked in store” shitty bread
Yeah, though you can get bread a little over £1 it’s the more luxury stuff. Most root veg, rice and oats are less than £1/KG and make up the majority of the volume of what we get, we usually spend about £30/week between the 2 of us on food. Most expensive purchase is usually cheddar, which is basically the default cheese here, the one we usually get is £5.42/KG.
Low-end food is apparently way cheaper in the UK than in North America:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJDg3lMlmBU
There’s been inflation since that video went up, so the prices aren’t quite that good anymore. There are more recent videos from that channel you can watch to see more current prices though.
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Jeremy Clarkson is a racist, abusive piece of shit
Lol, not discovers, just uses it a way that at this moment might serve him to further his own agenda.
It’s just a business that has one “influencer” already on staff.
He must have farted and the air bubble allowed him to get a glimpse of the outside world.
Nope way worse, he’s only realising and bringing this up because he owns a farm. If he didn’t have that self interest he wouldn’t be saying anything about it.
Oh. The fart was just him talking out of his ass like usual.
