Hi there,

Some people have mentioned that the price of meat is very expensive in Switzerland. I've looked through some UK websites (Tesco, Waitrose) to find out the price of 1 kilo of minced beef and 1 free range chicken.

Fresh (i.e. not frozen) minced beef per kilo: SFr.9-12
Free range whole chicken (not battery) per kilo: SFr.6-8

How does this compare to Switzerland?

Just checking Leshop, the Migros online shop.

Ground Beef 11.30CHF/Kg

Chicken 7CHF/Kg

I would not call a Tesco free range chicken free range.

In Switzerland you tend to pay the real cost of meat which is higher than the UK (ie the farmers get a fair price) but don't just rely on supermarkets, there are many good butchers and a lot of farmers sell very high quality meat direct from the farm.

Expect to pay about 12 Fr for a small free range chicken at Co-op though

I personally believe that if you can get a chicken for less that 15-20 bucks, something is wrong.

Your sense of proportion ?

dave

No Dave, but if you think you can get rear a chicken, kill it and process and afford to sell it for a fiver then you can eat it, not me. Something is wrong, but I guess some people like the smell of hock burn.

We could get into a discussion about market forces and pricing, but simply starting at a price and implying it gives you a measure of confidence is not giving the food suppliers, or indeed the consumers, credit.

Food is obviously a necessity and not all consumers want to pay the price of produce created, reared or processed in a "special" way, and indeed it is clear that that will happily feed chicken nuggets to their five kids iaw their family budget.

The market for processed food has evolved based on consumer demand and segmentation, and where you fit into that (assuming your food budget supports it) can be a matter of priority and choice. So...spend 15chf+ on a chicken by all means, for assurance, branding, better flavour, sustainable sources or whatever, but it doesn't follow that there is "something wrong" with products existing at a lower price point.

dave

It does for me Dave. You can eat whatever you like.

Thanks for that. I thought you were going to say "Let them eat cake."

dave

Holy sh**te, I find my self agreeing with Dave on this one. However in CH I have found that this is not only lifestyle choice (organic, non GM etc..) but a social one as well (where you shop indicates how much your income bracket is).

Two examples with reference to me. I eat meat everyday (literally) but shop around for the best quality vs. price which is really a no-brainer here given that quality standards are great
(i) I do like my ostrich steaks. Whereas in Coop one finds 200g in the 10-15 CHF range, one can buy the same in Denner for 7-10 CHF. Quality difference nothing discernible and both have origins in Southern Africa.
(ii) jumbo tiger prawns are ridiculously expensive in both Migros or Coop (thawed being more expensive than frozen ??), my local Vietnamese supermarket does 1 kg frozen for 32 CHF, again the same origin.

hi gooner, funny you mention this, am currently reading a great book by Felicity Lawrence Not on the Label.
About what really goes on behind our packaged foods.
The first chapter is on chickens

fascinating read (also have read Fast-Food-Nation,and Tescopoly
both also worth looking into)
i'm all for cheaper more affordable food (we know that there is a food crunch) and i admit to popping over to Konstanz to get cheaper steak but...we can also try to eat responsibily and healthily, and also be aware of what we are eating.

Cyrus,
Are you sure of your prices?
The ground beef looks on special offer down from Frs 16.65 per kilo. Coop quotes over Frs 20 a kilo.

The Frs 7 chicken is for a coquelet weighing approx 0.5 kilo. The price they quote is Frs 14 per kilo. There is a cheaper chicken further down for Frs. 9.80 a kilo. Coop quotes frs 12.50 a kilo.

That would the Swiss put the Swiss prices nearly double those of the UK.

Am I missing something here?

This may be of interest:
http://www.we-feed-the-world.at/en/index.htm

Just got back from summer holidays cruising around Slovakia and Poland - gorgeous countryside, fantastic people - BUT I wouldn't touch the supermarket chickens there with a bargepole "Lidl" and "Billa" stores on every corner in the larger towns with loads of "locallly" produced, aka battery reared, chickens. Only place you see a healthy-looking chicken anywhere (alive or dead) is in somebody's backyard in one of the really out-of-touch villages. I might earn some groans on this, but give me a non-battery-produced Swiss chicken any day

Nope, looks like you got me there. Sloppy leshopping on my part.

also chicken is relatively cheap all over . now what you really need to compare is red meat like lamb and beef - that´s altogether a different animal.
prices here are astronomical cf UK. I usually go for the US entrecote as it has fat on it unlike that awful Swiss lean stuff , or the Scottish beef. That works out about 6chf/100g which for those not arithmetically minded pans out at about 15UK pounds per pound . ´nuff said

I've also read Not on the Label. and Fast-Food-Nation, I will only buy meat and eggs from the butcher/farmer where I know the region (and sometimes the farm) they came from. As for meat from Migros - the number of times that I got bone splinters in ground beef and fish that stank when I opened the package at home straight from the shop.

It is not just about your food choices for health reasons. I find my money is wasted on supermarket meat. It is low quality, mass produced and wrapped in plastic (that you need to dispose of). Taste and flavour are compromised and the meat is sometimes very tough.

Ground beef is usually over 15 CHF per kilo and chicken is about 10 to 15 CHF per kilo, depending on the cut and etc.

The cheapest price for pork and beef without sale is 30 CHF per kilo and 40 CHF per kilo respectively.

Don't even get me started on seafood. Calamar is going at 14 CHF per kilo (and half a kilo is about three calamar pieces whole). Prawns are at 30 to 36 CHF per kilo.

Coming from M'sia where meat and seafood is cheap (mine you, I pay RM18 - not counting the foreign exchange - per kilo of beef), I had a culture food shock when I came to Switzerland...so did hubby who comes from France.

I do wonder though - why exactly is the meat so expensive? Demand-supply or just a difference in regulations, rearing techniques and etc. Just an interesting note - did you know that halal meats in M'sia are cheaper compared to non-halal meat? :P

I noticed one thing here though - the people who tend the seafood counters at Migros/Coop know very little about what fresh seafood looks like - maybe they assume that since it's thawed out, it wouldn't matter but really it does. If the fish was already stale when they froze it, it would be the same once it's thawed...or maybe even worse. =.=