Thats true . But never forget restaraunt food is excessively low quality. That must be plugged into your calculations. Most places arent buying fair trade organic from perma culture crowds…
On costco. One of the few things can confirm there is their fresh organic ginger is about 30nt/nt wholesale. As a solid point of comparing markups.
Not following. Butchers cut meat. These places have massive facilities with butchers/meat cutters slicing up animals into peices.
A butcher in my understanding is someone that is excellent in delivering a nice meat cut and deli meat, not just ‘hacked’ meat. I don’t think in Taiwan there is a school that teaches the profession of butcher. In Taiwan they are more like slaughters. No one really demands a nice cut of meat.
Yes those vacuum packages of chicken breasts are very economical. Very rarely buy meat at Carrefour except for something like bacon. We live near Bin Jiang market and will buy meat there sometimes too. Good prices especially compared to supermarkets. Just prefer the quality at Costco better.
I don’t like chicken breast but out of economic necessity I kinda have to… Chicken leg meat is too expensive in Taiwan.
I find brining the meat makes it much better tasting.
I get tofu at the wet market, dried beans at a wholesaler in K-town; both good sources of protein and cheaper than breasts
You guys alone could easily get together and contact Tsingtao brewery about their pork and order. They do small lots under 100kg. Ships from pingtung, cheap.
Well i guess that can be true. But those 2 are the same thing . Just different levels of skill is all . Go to a good butcher ,they are everywhere. Will hack the meat exactly how you direct them to.
How close to the farm do you suppose my wet market pork lady is? I should ask next time I’m there. Can’t be a lot of middlemen there though, certainly not paying corporate CEOs or accountants or shareholders etc
You would be shocked. We know more than afew drivers for massive pork farms just visiting this little far away village. Used to live and work in pig farms in pingtung, it is HUGE business! They head out around midnight delivering refrigerated gutted pork island wide. Its not all like that. But nost is done through so fairly large companies. I think its more likely than not the pigs were smooshed onto the bone breaker trucks lets say monday morning. Arrived at factory for slaught by noon. Cleaned and hung by 3 and on the road to tiapie by 10. Arrive in taipei 3~6am. Less than a 24 hour period usually nationwide, except the islands.
Pork industry is big here. Its no wonder it was why taiwan couldnt buy military equipment for years to protect against its war mongering aggressor at its doorstep . That fact never ceases to shock me, but the pork guys dont fuck around.
Edit. Your lady could raise her own pork. Entirely possible, just not probable.
Yea I imagine anyone who tried to mess with the pork cartel got turned into long pork…
Mmmm, sausages.
I went there this morning, for the first time as a visitor who knows prices at my local markets. TBH, for vegetables, the prices are about the same as my local market, some stalls slightly cheaper, others more expensive. Quality seems much better, presumably because people buy the good stuff early in the morning at my local market. There was slightly more variety of vegetables, too. But overall, any savings I would make by shopping there would be marginal.
Fish that I know prices of (in the shops in the streets around the market) are virtually the same as my local market. In some cases, more expensive.
Obviously, the people selling at my local market aren’t paying retail, presumably also because they’re buying by the box or maybe bidding at a wholesale market. I would imagine their markup is 100%.
In short, I didn’t see anywhere I could get prices that are different from my local market.
I wonder how is restaurants like biandang places able to sell food so cheap? Do they lose money?
I was at a small restaurant during the week that does a whole bunch of stir fry items, with beef, pork and seafood primarily. They are pretty competitive on price at around 100ish per dish, and have been for a long time. It is a very popular place. Anyway I noticed on the wall they had certificates up for the customs inspection of their meats. Their beef was from Paraguay, and their pork was from Denmark! @Taiwan_Luthiers I think you are right in questioning how this all adds up. Taiwan meat, at least in the case of this business, is just too expensive.
Like chicken biandang, with a single leg quarter and 3 vegetables, is usually around 90nt.
If you tried to make this biandang, not only you are not able to make it taste anywhere near as good, but you will spend about 500 to make it. The chicken leg quarter is about 25 if you are lucky.
No way the place is selling a dish for 90 where the cost of the ingredient far exceeds the food. There’s something that isn’t adding up at all. You can’t run a functional business unless you make at least 1/2 on the food because you have overhead costs.
Or there must be a price break where the cost becomes much lower when you buy above a certain quantity. Otherwise all the communal/institutional kitchens would go bust.
Like for example, this product, which is soup mix. When I was in the military they have large packs of this that contains enough powder to make about 40 servings. The bag is not well packaged at all, just a green bag with a label that says what flavor it is. I can’t find this anywhere outside of the military. There has to be wholesale distributors for those looking to feed 100s of people to get their supplies.
They buy wholesale. Its a massive mistake to assume restaraunts are selling $80 meals with high quality ingredients. The only way that is remotely possible is with scale.
They buy a lot of the dry / frozen / canned stuff from places like this.
Well if I try to buy ingredients that are the same quality I am still paying far more than the price of a biandang. So what am I missing? Where do I find chicken leg quarters that dont cost an arm and a leg?
This is simply not true. Mine tastes way better, and i can keep the cost lower. It takes me more time, only.