If food is expensive, sellers will transport it even at great cost in order to reap the profits Maybe too general of a statement to draw any definitive conclus

If food is expensive, sellers will transport it even at great cost in order to reap the profits Maybe too general of a statement to draw any definitive conclusions; it's really interesting how the cost of transport is a major underlying factor which is often overlooked, especially for food. However, the economic realities surrounding food are very different from those surrounding coffee. Rather an issue of supply and demand, the demand for food seems to be becoming more of a distribution issue than a supply issue. Doesn't the US have more obese people than just about everywhere else? And even without modern technology and "globalization", demand for food (or coffee, for that matter) could easily be a distribution issue at the local level, evidenced by the OP. The opposite of globalization is localization. The parent RE: "The Perils of Free Coffee" . . . for coffee (the only US state that grows coffee is Hawaii, afaik, which is quite interesting considering how much of the stuff Americans drink), the transport/distribution issues would indeed be pretty relevant. But again, at the expense of what? Starbucks' promotional hype for the hope of getting more people in general hooked on coffee being > the minor irritation of its self-proclaimed loyal customers? From the OP: "Here I was, a loyal customer willing to pay good money for a product similar to the one they’re handing out for free, and they didn’t want my business." And then: "As it happened, there was a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby, but since I dislike DD coffee, I made my walk with no coffee whatsoever." Just maybe had its intended effect.