In Asia, it’s often cheaper to buy food outside rather than cooking at home, whereas in Europe, the ratio is completely reversed. Also, culturally, everyone is often taking food and bring it back home.
I can see some reasons that might explain this, such as the cost of labor or stricter health regulations in Europe compared to Asia. But even with these factors in mind, it doesn’t explain it all.
Of course, I understand that it’s not feasible to replicate a model like Thailand’s street food culture in Europe. The regulations and cost of labor would likely make it impossible to achieve such competitive prices. But if we look at a place like Taiwan, for example, where street food is less common and instead, you have more buffet-style restaurants where you can get takeaway or eat on-site for around €3, while cooking the same meal at home might cost between €1.50. The price difference is barely 2x, which is still very far from the situation in Europe.
Why isn’t something like this possible in Europe?
In: Other
Thai street vendors aren’t being paid a $25 euro / hour salary with a retirement pension, healthcare, and 12 weeks paid vacation.
The hawker centres in Singapore are so insanely cheap, the same dishes in London would be 3x more expensive at the cheapest level. I think there’s a communal element to this in asian cultures, and street food in London for example just feels more gimmicky.
It goes to historical reasons. You get economies of scale from centralizing cooking facilities. When you have a lot of people in a relatively small area, these economies of scale are easy to realize. It also makes building housing cheaper and easier if you don’t have to include a spacious full kitchen.
However dense Europe may be, it’s still not that dense compared to say, Bangkok, generally, and people are wealthy enough that having more space is the norm. Once everyone has a kitchen (and thus many people cook at home), many of the economies of scale from centralizing food preparation go away.
It has nothing to do with labor costs, since a) most of those street vendors are in business for themselves, they’re not employees of a company and thus don’t have to comply with minimum wage laws (imagine getting fined for not paying yourself enough money because you didn’t have enough customers to make minimum wage one day)
The street food culture in SE Asia grew up in large part because historically (and in many cases even today) a lot of people lived in apartments that didn’t have kitchens or if they had them they were extremely rudimentary.
Appliances we take for granted like refrigerators and dishwashers also aren’t nearly as universal there, especially amongst those in the lower income groups.
Because of that there’s a high demand for street food, that demand keeps volumes high and creates competition between street food vendors and keeps prices lower.
In Europe and the USA having functional kitchens with convenience appliances is the norm and has been for quite a while. That makes home cooking convenient and more affordable. That reduces demand for street food.
There are also additional regulations on food purveyors in the western world compared to SE or South Asia, that raises costs and stops people from just jumping into the field because they have a charcoal grill and a folding table.
I think it’s a matter of wealth rather than Asia vs Europe. I lived in Hong Kong and always found it cheaper to cook at home. People do eat out more, but that’s because (1) their homes are often too small for guests, and (2) they have an income comparable to North America, and don’t have cars.
Availability of ingredients, cooking fuel and utensils. Stir fry comes to mind as a low cost, high heat form of cooking.
“But even with these factors in mind, it doesn’t explain it all.” Why not? Because you decided?
>In Asia, it’s often cheaper to buy food outside rather than cooking at home.
That’s a misconception
.
There’s two parts two everything being sold: parts/materials and labor.
We go to grocery stores to buy the veggies/meat to be cooked, those are the “materials” then at home you put your labor into it where u cut up the veggies and use a pan to cook, etc.
It’s the same thing for anything – food at restaurants, food at those food stalls mini markers. There’s labor and materials associated.
So if anyone will be selling anything, it means they have to make a profit to survive. It doesn’t make sense to buy ingredients for $3 and sell the food for $2 – if this was the case, you’re losing money.
That being said, it means it’s always cheaper to make your own food.
.
The only difference, are the cost of each. The “materials” in Asia is cheaper, and the labor is considerably cheaper. In the US the Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr, well in Asia is can be $100/month (or cheaper!) as a full-time worker. Assuming they work 160hrs a month (but in reality it’s prob more than that) it comes out to $0.63/hr
.
The reason why you think it’s cheaper to eat out rather than cook at home is because you’re likely going to the expensive grocery stores. Like going to Whole Foods compared to Walmart, and the restaurant goes to Walmart (“lower quality” grocery stores)
Is it cheaper?
In india I can pretty much make any food at home from half to even a 5th of the price than if I buy from outside.
Plus it’s much healthier
Stuff like that happened in Europe. When the Roman Empire was still a thing, about 2000 years ago, Rome was a packed city of about 1 million people living at ~14 km². A lot of people lived in insulae, cheaply build homes where kitchens were not allowed due to fire regulations. Yup, the ancient Romans already had such things.
So going to the tabernae (yup, tavern comes from that) were a thing, simple kitchens which cooked stuff for a cheap price. And they were a necessity to keep the population fed, because most of them could not cook at home.
Latest Answers