When I was a teenager, my mom and stepdad owned a small bistro in a little town in Ontario cottage country called Dorset.
Dorset, for those of you who aren’t aware, is in the general area of Huntsville, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, etc.
One of the things it is most famously known for is an old general store called Robinson’s. These days, that general area (though Huntsville specifically) is also known as the hometown of the fabulously glam-rockesque Hawksley Workman, not that we’re keeping track or anything…
Now, during the summer that I was working at the bistro with my parents, I spent a great deal of time handing out advertising (menus and such) in front of Robinson’s. And back then (nigh on 13 years ago), Robinson’s was an old fashioned general store with bits and bobs and handicrafts. I’m not sure when during the last 13 years it merged with a Foodland store to provide a greater selection of groceries to the cottaging masses, but I’m sure you can sense how that in and of itself offended my sensibilities. It seems that over the years, the little things that made Robinson’s unique have been slowly falling away.
So, I’m hoping you will also be able to understand how I found myself standing in the produce aisle at this Robinson’s/Foodland blend last week, full of moral indignation.
Most of the time I’d say I’m a pretty live-and-let-live sort of person, but when I picked up one of these pre-packaged basil sleeves for the Everyman, I was outraged to see the little stamp down the side that said Product of Dominican Republic. Before you start getting all up in arms about me having a hate-on for the DM, let me be clear that I don’t. What I have a hate-on for is stocking something that comes from so bloody far away when somewhere in Ontario or even some other Canadian province, there must be a commercial greenhouse growing basil that’s just as good by local farmers.
I stood there in the produce aisle, fingering the package, mouth agape for a good 2 minutes. The Everyman gave me that look he gives me when he thinks I’m overreacting and told me to stop making a big deal about it and get on with our shopping. So, at the time, I did. But I’m still fuming.
Seriously. What the fuck??? Why does this happen? When I was at a Metro at lunch yesterday, they also had pre-packaged herb sleeves, but these ones were shipped in from the (drastically closer) Quebec. A vast improvement, yes, but still perplexing nonetheless.
So, all that ire has convinced me that I need to write a letter. I want an answer and I want to know why. I’m not naive, so I know that any answer will most likely have something to do with money, but it just doesn’t really make sense to me, you know? Are these the measures a national supply chain must take to deliberately deflate the price of a package of herbs to $1.49? Well, I don’t know if I like it.
Until next time…
Tags: basil, Foodland, grocery, herbs, Metro, rantings, Robinson's
Even in terms of economics, this shit is hard to understand. An economist I knew once calculated that, given the price of these little, plastic herb sarcophagi, someone could make $100,000 per acre by growing fresh herbs. Sure beats the $10 per acre farmers around here get for growing commodity grains.