Loading ...
Food prices worldwide are going up, causing many Berkeley restaurants to raise their prices as well. Pivotal items such as wheat and corn have gone up significantly, and quite frankly, we’re surprised the Daily Cal article didn’t bring up the biofuel debate. This is Berkeley, right?
Basically, the food issue is divided into two camps in Berkeley: privileged middle class people who frequent Gourmet Ghetto-type food joints and are willing to shell out cash or (mostly) privileged middle class people who frequent Asian Ghetto-type food joints and are already spending their cash on school.
Then there’s an ancillary group. “Buy local! Direct from farmers! In season!” they scream.
Adagia Restaurant’s Executive Chef Omri Aronow said purchasing from local, sustainable farmers is the long-term solution to keeping costs low, in part because the prices of locally produced food are significantly less affected by the skyrocketing costs of gas and transportation.
He also said he believes that unless businesses modify their purchasing strategies, the cycle of rising gas prices and food prices will continue.
“You have to focus locally on what people are doing right here, right now, rather than getting large quantities of food that is not in season and expands the use of fossil fuels,” Aronow said.
Ah, yes. The environment. Aronow has a point, but do most college students have the budget to buy all their produce from farmers’ markets? All we have to say is once you’ve tasted an organic strawberry, freshly plucked from soil no more than 30 minutes away and to-the-minute in seasonal peak, you can never go back. Not even to TJ’s.
Image Source: mako under Creative Commons
Restaurants Deal With Rising Food Costs [Daily Cal]
Comments:
Jul 12, 2008 at 10:41 pm
woah you’ve got a point.
price of food at the farmers market is too expensive for me. rent is already pretty high. a lot of people assume that since this is a college place, we can afford everything since we’ve been able to pay for tuition. the thing is, not every one is rich. i consider farmers market food as rich people’s food.
i’ve tasted strawberries from the farmer’s market once. they were good. but once i was told how much just one basket cost, it was pretty easy to go back.
of course, this is coming from someone who is willing to eat a cup of noodles for lunch several days in a row.