While looking for some oranges to buy today there didn’t seem to be any Mandarin oranges and so I just looked at the available ones which were the Navel ones. The most expensive one appeared to be one that was labelled as farmer’s market which funny enough made me think it was say organic and local as that usually jacks up the price. But upon further inspection the product apparently came from India.
Usually for common grocery items I would actually expect the local stuff to be more expensive similar to how when you shop at a farmer’s market you are paying a premium for fresher stuff. Common items coming from elsewhere is usually cheaper. It made me think, to pay a premium on a grocery item would you actually place more value on say the brand of the item or where it came from assuming the items were virtually identical otherwise?
Unless it is something that isn’t native here I usually place more value on the food item of it was locally sourced as that usually means fresher ingredients. I still remember the first time that I ate a grape right from the grapevine at a garden I was helping to grow. It was just space age quality beyond the stuff I bought at the stores. Ever since then for most food items my thought is if it is quality you are looking for then the fresher the better which usually should mean the local stuff.