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April 2010

Cincinnati

SI.com: Sushi … in Cincinnati … at baseball games? You can’t be serious

SI.com: Sushi … in Cincinnati … at baseball games? You can’t be serious

An article like this shows how backwater Cincinnati can be at times to new ideas and change.  Paul Daugherty thinks that selling sushi at Reds Games is somehow a questionable idea because it’s Cincinnati and we don’t do that kind of thing here. 

This is the home office of paid baseball, established 1876. Johnny Bench slept here.  We eat hot dogs and their various kinfolk: Mettwurst, bratwurst, all the wursts. We drink beer. It’s who we are. Buy me some su-shi and char-donnay? I don’t think so.

Wake up Paul, it’s 2010 and times are changing.  What’s wrong with offering customers a choice? It’s not like someone is forcing you to eat sushi when going to the ballpark.  But, Daugherty is thinking like a 10 year old- that somehow what you eat defines you as a fan.

The NFL doesn’t do this, because it doesn’t have to and no meat-eating
NFL fan would be caught dead with a piece of raw mackerel between his
thumb and forefinger. Except maybe in San Francisco.

But, he’s wrong here too.  A simple Googling shows that at least the Houston Texans of the NFL has sushi available.  I’m sure there are others too, I’m just not bothering to do more research, just like Paul Daugherty. 

Real baseball fans don’t come to the yard to eat ahi and slurp cuba libres. They just don’t. Problem is, there aren’t enough real baseball fans. You should see the cynical, smirky grins I provoke when I walk to my seat with my scorebook and pencil. All I need is a hat with a propeller.

There definitely aren’t enough of the fans that Daugherty describes, because well, they’re mostly dead.  But, there are plenty of other fans, just not as many as the Reds would like.  The Reds averaged 21,579 last year, 14th out of 16 National League teams.  It seems like the strategy for catering to just “real fans” is a losing one.  Speaking of “real fans”, I drove by Miller Park in Milwaukee one weekend day after they were out of the race, and there were a lot of people tailgating for a Brewers game.  It’s time to stop talking about how great the fans of Cincinnati are.  We have dedicated fans and we have fair-weather fans, just like any city. 

The Reds need more fans, not less fans.  So, what is wrong with the Reds trying to appeal to more people and create new fans?  Will “real fans” not show up because there’s someone eating sushi next them?

Isn’t being a fan, about loving the sport and loving the team?  I love Baseball, the Reds, and sushi.  I also love hot dogs, just not the cadaver-like ones they sell at the stadium.  (I like Nathan’s hot dogs).

It’s nice to see the Reds offer choice.  Now, maybe the Reds can get some decent Mexican food, and no those day-glo nachos don’t count.

Uncategorized

Mrs. May Trio bars made in China

I recently came across one of these Mrs. May Trio Bars.  Looks natural and healthy.
Mrsmays1.pngI flipped over the package to check out the ingredients to see how natural these are and noticed that the bar was made in China. 
Mrsmays2.pngThese days I know we’re all used to having every toaster and computer made in China, but are we ready to have our food products made there?

I was more concerned about the ingredients being from China, but I found out that Mrs. May sources 60% of the ingredients here in the United States, but
ships it to China for processing and then back to the United States for
sale.  The last 40% of the ingredients are sourced from Vietnam.  Mrs. May moved production from Orange County, California to China 5 years ago according to this article.

AllBusiness.com: Nuts and Boats: Mrs. May’s Naturals Ships Food Materials to China to Process, then Back to the U.S. for Sale

Abbye Freiman, a food manufacturing consultant based in Torrance, said
that she knows of no other food company that ships raw materials to Asia
for manufacturing and gets finished products sent back to the United
States for sales.

“It comes down to basically cost of labor,” said James Kim. “The amount of money that it will cost us to hire 50 people in China for a month is equivalent to one person’s monthly salary here. It is not like we are underpaying them; it is the going rate. It’s like having 200 people at the factory at the cost of four or five here.”

The minimum wage in California is $8/hour.  A person’s yearly salary at that rate, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year $16,640 or $1387 per month.  If Mrs. May is hiring 50 people for that amount, each employee is making $27.74 a month.  If you give weekends off, which is a questionable premise since it is common for factories in China to give employees only a couple of days off month, employees are making making $1.27 a day or $.16/hour assuming 8 hour days.  This may be the prevalent wage, but is it a fair one?

Can you blame Mrs. May for moving production to China when labor costs are this low?  This is raw capitalism

When people say that the government should stay out of businesses way, this is what we get.  Companies maximizing profit without accepting societal or environmental consequences.