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"I'd like 4 boxes of groceries, please."
"Certainly sir. That'll be 25.99. Have a
nice day."
Most of most people's shopping lists are
the mostly same most of the time. So, let
supermarkets sell boxes of
groceries by weight at a fixed price.
Every box is different, containing a fairly
balanced selection of essentials plus a
few random items. You
take pot-luck, but chances are that you'll
need 70% of what's in the box, will have
your tastes broadened by 20% of it, and
will save 10% by accepting whatever the
supermarket decides it can sell cheapest
that week. And the time, hassle,
arguments and stress saved will be a
bonus.
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Annotation:
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This is pretty much what you get when you receive food aid monthly from charitable groups such as food banks. Been there, packed that. |
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When I was a young 'un, before the advent of food stamps, we used to receive "commodities" food aid from the government. As I recall, there was a bit of randomness about it. Sometimes canned pork, sometimes canned beef, sometimes chicken, always in a nifty silver "USDA" labeled can. Powdered milk, cheese and raisins are also stuck in my memory. Could explain why it doesn't work as well as I'd like... |
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A bun for your last two lines, [half]. Yes, canned peanut butter, blocks of cheese the size of loaves of bread, farm subsidy program that benefitted families. |
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Bring in the Food Police. |
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This IT generation is not the sharing/caring kind. |
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Many organic vegetable suppliers operate a 'box scheme'; you sign up for box (your choice of size) and a delivery schedule (weekly, fortnightly, whatever) and they deliver whatever happens to be available. |
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I like. But can we include toilet paper. I always forget the damn toilet paper! |
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OK, toilet paper's in, but only on a
statistical basis. There has to be a bit
of uncertainty and excitement in life. |
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Regarding the comparison with aid
parcels, things would be different if the
supermarket chains were competing. It
would be in their interests to develop a
reputation for the best pot-luck boxes. |
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Regarding 'bring in the food police'
[mensaximus] - an excellent
suggestion! You could sneak the odd
piece of fruit in amongst the processed
stuff that most consumers *really*
want, on the assumption that they
might eat it if they got desperate :-) |
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Food police would ensure a fundamental flow of nutritional food. |
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As grocery store owners, nutritionists, health food store owners, regular farmers, organic farmers, food processors, distributors (read all lobyists), informed citizens and uninformed citizens have their own differing opinions on food flow; chaos ensues. Food will revolt and take to the streets, demanding to be eaten equally by all. Equality for food eaters everywhere. Rant. |
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Interesting. What if you wanted to buy food for a certain meal you wanted to prepare? I think this would be cool if the grocery stores had basic foodboxes like this, only anything not everyone needs or wants is sold seperately. |
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//What if you wanted to buy food for a
certain meal you wanted to prepare?//
Nah, that's arse-about-face. The
correct philosophy is "OK, we've got
diced lamb, kidney beans, spinach and
olive oil. What can we make from that?" |
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Here in Japan, there are gift bags with random selections of clothes, sorted by approximate size and by the price of the whole bag. For instancee, you can buy a 5000 yen bag of clothes for a size 10 person. Its very popular during I forget which holiday. I think the idea would work splendidly with food |
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