food prices

[GLCQuantum]

Whats not cheaper in LOS? Really??

Good cheese

[lomuamart]

All I know is that our monthly spend on food is 5,500 - 6,000K a month.
My wife eats her Thai and Lao concoctions whilst I munch away three times a day - breakfast is a "fry up" but with local pork that my wife marinades, rather than bacon with eggs and tomatoes. Lunch is generally Thai - fried rice, noodles or some such but loads of it. Dinner is a cross between western and Thai - could be chicken or pork stew, meatballs, pasta dishes and even the occasional Indian curry. Loads of fresh veg and fruit. Etc Etc. Lots of variety.
She buys from the local markets and I honestly don't think I've eaten as well since I left home at 17.
Try doing that for the same price back in the UK. About 3 years ago, I went with a friend to an Asda in west London and helped her with the shopping. OK, there were kids coming round that weekend and a number of hungry mouths to feed but she spent knocking on 250 quid for the week. I nearly passed out.

[Nereus]

Milk is cheaper here in Thailand, but all Milk (with exception of Ummm Millk and Milk from 1 University Farm) is powdered milk that is mixed with water and then bottled. Milk i the West (I believe) is generally from the cow's tit.

Not sure where you get that from Winkie? The following a few years old, but it shows that 95% of Thailand milk production is consumed as "raw" milk. Most of the powdered milk seems to be imported, probably to be used in manufacturing other dairy related products.

[BaaBaa.]

With all due respect moose 961, it sounds like your wife is trying to eat exactly the way she does at home and is not adapting to the way Thais eat. If you don't adapt and instead want to live in you culture with your food here with you you will pay a premium for importing it. If however you learn the Thai names of some dishes you like and go out and discover the country and food I think you will have an amazing time and you will be amazed how cheap it is.

I'm pretty sure his Thai wife can manage all that, and how do you come to that conclusion when somebody mentions the Price of Chicken and eggs?

Anyway Moose, go and tell your Thai wife that a Farang who can speak a bit of Thai says she just ain't doing this Thai thing right.

[Winkie]

[quote="Nereus"
Not sure where you get that from Winkie? The following a few years old, but it shows that 95% of Thailand milk production is consumed as "raw" milk. Most of the powdered milk seems to be imported, probably to be used in manufacturing other dairy related products. [/quote]

My info too, is quite a few years old. I had an Australian Friend that was a Farm Manager at a large Dairy Farm in Saraburi/Korat Area. He told me this info.

I do not see your reference, but find it extremely hard to imagine that 95% of milk is consumed raw (which surely means unpasturised/unprocessed)

I'll have a little looky on the net to see if I can find anything more accurate.

He explained that transport costs were considerably cheaper if the milk was powdered, distributed (both domestically and export), and then reconstituted.

Has anyone ever seen a Milk Tanker on the roads?

[Roel]

Whats not cheaper in LOS? Really??

Wine.

Bet you cant get a kapow gai with fried egg and rice for 30 baht!

Me neither. One of my favorite dishes too, but will set you back 60 Baht here on Phuket (talking food stalls not restaurants).

Obviously locally produced goods are in general cheaper while imported goods are at least the same price or even more expensive. The real big difference in prices are in the labour intensive services. A haircut for 50 to 100 Baht. A gardener or a maid for a few hundred Baht a day. A mechanic spending a full hour fiddling around with your motorbike and then you receive a 150 Baht invoice that includes spare parts. The west cannot beat that.

[Nereus]

Milk is cheaper here in Thailand, but all Milk (with exception of Ummm Millk and Milk from 1 University Farm) is powdered milk that is mixed with water and then bottled. Milk i the West (I believe) is generally from the cow's tit.

Not sure where you get that from Winkie? The following a few years old, but it shows that 95% of Thailand milk production is consumed as "raw" milk. Most of the powdered milk seems to be imported, probably to be used in manufacturing other dairy related products.

Sorry Winkie, forgot to add the link:

http://www.tamas.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/91 ... ernize.ppt

[Dannie Boy]

This subject has been aired many times before - if you come from the West and try to eat exactly the same here in Los, you are going to pay though your nose. If you adopt say the 80-20 rule and buy most of your produce "local" you will pay less overall. We can all quote examples of high costs in Los (cheese, imported wine, imported meat etc) but as lomuamart said, a trip to a UK supermarket for a family can cost an awful lot of money.

[Cing Jai]

Sorry I didn't know she was Thai. I was wrong but was only trying to be helpful.

[BaaBaa.]

Sorry I didn't know she was Thai. I was wrong but was only trying to be helpful.

That's where you appear to be going wrong, you aren't the first person to appear on this forum telling everyone they should eat at street stalls and speak Thai. It rubs people up the wrong way as most have lived in Thailand for years.

[Mrock]

Whats not cheaper in LOS? Really??

Good cheese

Funny, I was thinking about cheese when I made my original post. I stand corrected! Good cheese is at least the same price. I don't care what anybody says, Thailands food is cheaper.

[Takiap]

OP............if your wife is paying 60 baht for a dozen eggs, then she must be buying them from one of the Farang food shops. A tray of 30 eggs costs about 120 baht at the most, and if you shop around a little, you can get them even cheaper. We get 30 huge eggs direct from a farmer, and pay 50 baht.


I don't really think milk is cheap in Thailand, but then again, I don't know what it costs in the US or in the UK.


Bread in Thailand is quite expensive compared to the UK, unless prices in the UK have gone up considerably in the last few years. Cheese, as others have mentioned, is a luxury in Thailand, but then we need to remember the Thais are not really big cheese lovers. Baked beans are also expensive here in Thailand compared to the UK.


But, as you can see, all the foods I've mentioned are of little importance to the vast majority of Thais. If like me, you eat Thai meals 99% of the time, food costs in Thailand are way below what I would be spending in the UK, or even in my own country (SA)


I can't understand why bacon costs what it does in Thailand though, considering pork is so cheap here. Then again, I don't ever have a craving for bacon. In fact, I can't even remember when last I had a western meal apart from some pea soup I made a while back. With the MIL living here with us, there's always ready to eat food in the kitchen, and it's great because a lot of it is just plain Thai home cooking which can't be ordered in restaurants.

[Pleng]

she must be buying them from one of the Farang food shops.

Or 7/11. I'm constantly amazed at how 7/11 have managed to dupe 90% of Thais I know into believing they are cheap! I remember telling my girlfriend that we should buy our water at a local shop or Tesco because it's much cheaper than 7/11. She couldn't believe the price difference when I finally got her in Tesco to show her.

I also remember bumping into an acquaintance in Koh Samui one time. I was walking out of (again) Tesco. She asked me what I'd been buying and I showed her my water bottles. She almost violently scolded me (!) and told me I should have gone to 7. I calmly explained the prices I'd paid and she sort of went "ohhh" with that distant look of "I don't quite get it" on her face (the same sort of look you get if you try and order a pepper Steak without sauce)!

Bread in Thailand is quite expensive compared to the UK, unless prices in the UK have gone up considerably in the last few years.

They have.

Last time I saw somebody say bread is expensive here I didn't have a reference point. But then I had a look next time I saw some

A budget load of bread can be had for 25bt in 7/11 it seems. That's about 50p, which will get you a loaf of Tesco Value bread (or would have done 6 months ago) and give you enough change for a tin of value beans (6p?)

A good quality loaf will cost anything between £1 and £2 if I remember correctly.

I can't understand why bacon costs what it does in Thailand though, considering pork is so cheap here.

My guess, and it is an absolute guess, is that Bacon is one of the many parts of the animal that is ground up to make Thai Pork Balls. As such, separating it warrants a premium.

[Big Boy]

I don't really think milk is cheap in Thailand

When I first started visiting Thailand in the late 80s, milk was not as common a commodity as it is now. I remember when my son was about 18 months, we simply could not buy milk for him. He survived on Vitamilk for the entire holiday.

[playboy]

Source: The Independent, UK, Thursday, 9 December 2010

Bangkok - the world's second cheapest city
Source: The Independent, UK, Thursday, 9 December 2010


Oslo has topped a list of the world's most expensive cities compiled by price comparison site PriceRunner.

The Norwegian capital was the most expensive city of 32 countries surveyed in PriceRunner's International Price Comparison survey, topping the list for the fourth year running.

The survey, which looked at a range of products that included everyday items such as milk and petrol as well as luxury items and technology, found that prices in the city were a third more expensive on average than the global average.

PriceRunner quoted prices that included €2.10 for a can of Coke, €1.82 for a liter of milk and €5.49 for a Big Mac.

The second most expensive city surveyed was Sao Paulo, with Sydney coming in third and Swedish capital Stockholm in fourth place.

The cheapest city was Mumbai, where prices were 27 percent lower than the global average, with Bangkok and (rather surprisingly) Dubai in second and third place respectively.

Broken down into product segments, the study determined that a basket of tech goodies including gifts such as the iPad, the HTC Desire and a Sony TV was cheaper in Paris than it was anywhere else.

If you're looking for mascara or a handbag, New York worked out as the cheapest city, while Mumbai was the cheapest for a pair of Adidas shoes and Dubai was the cheapest for a Swatch watch.

Ranking - City - Percentage above or below average

1 Oslo 35.3%
2 Sao Paulo 27.1%
3 Sydney 20.5%
4 Stockholm 15.5%
5 Reykjavik 14.9%
6 Helsinki 11.5%
7 Copenhagen 10.6%
8 Tokyo 9.8%
9 Paris 8.3%
10 Rome 4.4%
11 Dublin 2.0%
12 Cape Town 1.6%
13 Amsterdam 0.5%
14 Brussels -0.1%
15 Vienna -0.2%
16 Athens -0.4%
17 London -0.9%
18 Madrid -1.2%
19 Lisbon -1.2%
20 Buenos Aires -3.0%
21 Moscow -4.8%
22 Budapest -6.1%
23 Berlin -6.7%
24 Warsaw -7.8%
25 Prague -8.1%
26 Vilnius -13.3%
27 New York -14.5%
28 Shanghai -14.8%
29 San Francisco -16.2%
30 Dubai -16.2%
31 Bangkok -19.8%
32 Mumbai -26.9%

Data from PriceRunner - http://www.pricerunner.co.uk
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