Quality vs Convenience

Peet's is a well known coffee roaster here in the Bay Area, and in recent years have expanded nationally. Peet's started the high-quality coffee business. Because of their national distribution, Peet's is prepacking their coffee and selling it in supermarkets all over the place. While in the Safeway, I saw a display of Peet's coffee, and was tempted to buy a bag as I needed some at home. But whoa! The label said that the coffee in the bag was guaranteed to be less than 90-days old. No way was I going to buy coffee that was even ten days old. What really got to me was that the price was higher than the fresh stuff at Peet's, and that Peet's has a store almost directly across the street from Safeway. "Why," I asked myself,"would someone buy a lesser quality product for more money when a better, fresher, less expensive product was available within walking distance?" The answer was simple: convenience.

So, I decided to ask the Chef Talk contributors what they thought. How much quality would you sacrifice for convenience? To what lengths would you go to get better quality food? Would you cross the street? Would you drive across town? Would you wait until the farmers' market day? Would you pass on an item completely if it didn't meet your standards? Would you buy less of an item if the quality you wanted was priced too high for your budget, or would you just buy more of a lower quality item?

I'd just as soon you reserve your affection for someone else <LOL>. Yeah, I may be somewhat out of touch with the rest of the US, but understand that I live in the San Francisco area, and food is a major, major concern for many of the population. Many people here know the name of the chicken that laid the egg they had for breakfast. We have an area in Berkeley called the Gourmet Ghetto and, to a great extent, we set food trends for the rest of the country. So yeah, we're out of touch.

I wasn't addressing my question to the rest of the world - just to the people at Chef Talk. I know the rest of the world doesn't care about food like we do.

You better read that post again. I was NOT insulted and I resent your comment that I was.

You have pretty much expressed my feelings exactly ... I'm just forty years ahead of you <LOL>

I try not to be too critical - I really do - and I try to hold myself in check. But dam# it! When I see the cr#p that's foisted upon the American public I get so angry. When I was twelve years old I started shopping for myself because my mother didn't buy things (clothing & food) that met my standards. At fourteen years old I had my own butcher, at sixteen I would travel for hours on the subway to a store that had great citrus. At sixteen I bought my own clothes ...

I understand that people have to buy what they can afford - although I would argue that buying less of better quality is an alternative to be considered. I know that people have different ideas about what constitutes quality, and certainly what's important to them. I am lucky in that I can afford the time to travel across town to get the bread or the butter I desire, that I don't ever have to enter a typical supermarket and buy a "national brand" of some product. There are products I never heard of until joining CT.

But let me tell you a little secret. I'm willing to bet that I am the poorest bloke on this list. I've not worked in almost three years because of some health issues. I spend more time with doctors than I do at home. But I don't care. I am not going to buy junk - junk food, junk clothes, junk anything, just because I'm impoverished financially. I don't even feed cr#p food to my cat. He gets home made food - organic chicken and high quality turkey from the poultry store, fresh organic egg yolks, decent salmon every now and then, high quality vitamins and ammendments. The reason I have time to shop is because I don't have the ability to work on a regular basis. But I'm not going to skimp on quality. I just buy better goods and less of them.

And if people want to judge me as pretentious, so be it. I don't give a rat's patoot. But if I can change some thinking, if what I say or do gets one person to shop at a farmers' market and gets them to try truly fresh produce, or real "farm fresh eggs" not just the junk advertised in the Wednesday flyer as being farm fresh when it's travelled half way across the country, then call me what you will. If someone will choose a locally grown apple, in season, over an apple grown in Chile and sent to the US via cargo jet, because of something I said or did, then call me a pompous, pretentious jerk - I don't care.

Emily, for me it's a moving target. Let's take beans for an example, garbanzo beans to be specific. I used to buy garbanzos at one particular store known for a certain quality and good prices. I liked the beans because they were packed with very low salt, and they tasted pretty good. I then noticed the fine print on the can stating that the beans came from China. A new source had to be found.

I started using the garbanzos from Whole Foods. In order for me to get the WF garbanzos, I had to make a sixteen mile round trip, which I was willing to do although I'd always try to do in conjunction with some other errands. After a while I discovered that the quality of the WF beans slipped, and the beans weren't consistantly acceptable.

Now I buy canned garbanzo beans from another company, which only uses USA or Canadian beans (I think USA beans). They meet all my requirements - low salt, good taste, great texture, and conveniently available in several places that I shop. The downside is that they are spendy - $2.00 a can (but I got plenty of coupons from the company). As much as I like the beans, I'm transitioning away from them. I'm looking for high quality, organic, dried beans, and I will make my own garbanzos from them. In fact, more and more I am moving towards making more items from scratch.

So, what worked in 2007 no longer works in 2008. Education about a product, new products, new options, all contribute to food purchasing decisions. And over time my idea of quality has changed.

Coincidentally, the first store that I got beans from received so much flack for carrying products produced in China, that they have changed, and are changing, many of their suppliers. So, it sometimes pays to speak out and kick up some dust.

Yes and no, depending on your definition ... there are some items I buy for convenience - yesterday I purchased a can of chile - but it was a carefully thought out process, choosing a brand that was low salt, organic, no GMO's, from a well-regarded company, and packed in a can that was free of BPA's, and so on.

And as I wrote in an earlier post, the quality/convenience target is always moving. For me, I keep looking for higher quality, even in convenience items. Fortunately, the products are out there - at least around here.

I was thinking about your comments last night. There's nothing wrong with convenience - I, too, buy convenience foods - but there's quality convenience items and junk. I'd like to think you used good quality canned goods, items that met your standards for quallity and goodness, rather than picking up some junk from the "dented cans" outlet.

Because I care about what I put in my body. I buy from known, well-regarded, local sources.

I generally don't buy produce in a store - I rarely set foot in a supermarket - I get my produce from local producers at the farmers' market, and these producers are well known for their quality and attention to environmental concerns. In fact, many adhere to stricter standards than the USDA Oraganic code or whatever they call it. All are local. The Berkeley Farmers' Markets don't allow any non-local products to be sold - I think the radius is something like fifty or 100 miles from the city. Anyway, when I do buy produce in a store, it is from one of three stores, and I know where their produce comes from - the same local sources as the farmers' market. I do not buy ANY prepackaged produce from any mainstream producer, such as Earthbound Farms, Cascadian Farms, Trader Joe's, or other such companies. I stopped that practice quite some time ago.

You see, around here, there's a BIG movement towards buying local products, and a number of the markets will tell you exactly who grew the produce. And we have a few magazines, newsletters, and organizations that keep track of who's growing what and what their farming and production techniques are like. That goes for dairy, poultry, and meat as well.

Around here many of us are VERY attuned to where our food comes from, and who's producing it, and the quality they offer. I can tell you who packed the eggs I had for breakfast, I know the woman who raises the chickens, and the dairy products I use are only from one of two sources who produce some of the best milk and dairy in the state - and they, too, are local.

I rarely buy anything that is a commercial, national brand - well, I sometimes buy Hebrew National Franks and Grey Poupon Mustard. And three months ago - I bought a can of Campbell's soup that I saw advertised and wanted to see what it was like ...

Nope, you don't know me, and you don't know what the food scene is around here, of that I'm sure. Fortunately, there are enough Safeways and Lucky's and other such stores that, for those who will accept GMO food, mass-produced organics, milk from questionable sources, and large plastic bottles filled with chemically altered soft drinks, the option exists. And for the rest of us there's Stan Devoto and his fifty vaieties of heirloom apples, Frog Hollow for peaches and stone fruit, Lucero, Blue Heron, Full Belly amd other small, local farms growing incredibly high qualty produce (fresher and often cheaper than the stuff in many local supermarkets), there are the artisan bakers like Acme churning out organic baguettes and breads, Moyra and Thaddues Barsotti's wonderful tomatoes ... the list goes on and on.

I don't think that's correct in all, if not many, instances. But you've got me curious ... I know that a lot of the produce is grown in a different water shed area than Napa, but maybe the apples I mentioned and some of the dairy.

What I'm not clear about is how sharing a watershed with the Napa Valley would effect things. Care to explain?

I know, I know ... mea culpa. For some reason I keep forgetting about Boarshead - there's only one place around here that I know of where I can get them, and when I'm there it's usually for poultry. <Light goes on> I'll ask Maria to remind me about the Boarshead whenever I stop in. She's there every day.

Eating Hebrew National let's me be closer to God.
Makes me feel holier than thou!