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Many Swiss farmers use honor system to sell their products
- Kenji 7y agoHeh, I'm Swiss and there's one like 300m from my home. As a kid I always wondered why people don't just take it without paying =)
- Varqu 7y agoA video of how those look inside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwyPEFC4Tsk&feature=youtu.be&t=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwyPEFC4Tsk&feature=youtu.be...
- cromulent 7y agoThey used to have this in Finland too, but it seems to be dying out. Such a shame, but I guess it is inevitable.
- macmac 7y agoVery common in Denmark too.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- amayne 7y agoI’ve seen this in the US in rural parts of Georgia.
- beauzero 7y agoYep...I agree it works well here and let's you farm while holding down another job. You can get "vine ripened" and the flavor it much better. It also is more efficient for spoilage. Hogs or chickens get it right after it is too ripe.
- sunseb 7y agoAs a Swiss guy, I must say I only see this in rural areas. It wouldn't work in big cities like Geneva I think (too many people living in urban areas who don't respect our wonderful country and that's a shame).
- dontbenebby 7y agoThis is actually fairly common in rural areas in America too. Maybe someone sets up a bunch of pumpkins, apples, etc at the end of their driveway (which in rural America can be measured in KM) and a box to put money in.
- ottowinter 7y agoI don't think Americans would measure it in KM... ;)
- Stratoscope 7y agoEven in suburban areas. In San Jose we have Phil Cosentino's J & P Farms on Carter Avenue next to the Camden-85 interchange: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.249591,-121.909198,240m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.249591,-121.909198,240m/data... https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x808e340f2c491c55%3A0xe03af2013f055a85!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNJ6fdg0u7EJlyYayRHiLHX0TQ46x9ILIMtM5E0%3Dw426-h320-k-no!5sj%20p%20farms%20san%20jose%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipNLAkClEExqM-lvfBP7ie4Ts6ntbUq-A6qBUliw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCy46Opt3iAhXPHTQIHVL5DgMQoiowGXoECBMQBg https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x808e340f2c491c5... Sometimes there will be someone out at their fruit stand, but most of the time it runs on the honor system with a money slot where you pay for your produce.
- saddestcatever 7y agoI see this with eggs and wood a lot in the more rural areas of New England. I think it's a simple case where whatever (if any) shrinkage is still significantly less than the cost of monitoring
- ptspts 7y agoSome of them provide free tasting as well: small glasses and many open bottles so that the customer can try all flavors before buying one.
- chabes 7y agoThis is more common than you might think in rural areas in California
- dontbenebby 7y agoIIRC I saw this for strawberries when driving to SF for an internship. I've seen it for pumpkins in the midwest too.
- chabes 7y agoSwanton Berry Farm along Hwy 1, perhaps?
- dontbenebby 7y agoThey were small stands, just said STRAWBERRIES or ORANGES :)
- Theodores 7y agoOnce upon a time I cycled through vast fields of strawberries and other yummy looking produce in California. I did see honour system stalls but they were pretty rare considering the size of the area. They were more like curious exceptions rather than the norm. They were also geared up to sell at volumes that didn't suit the bike, so too much to carry. I got the impression from the article on Switzerland that this was more of a way to do your shopping, so sensible quantities not vast bulk purchases. Incidentally I did not stop to freeload a single strawberry. On a bike with nobody around this should have been simple, there weren't even any barbed wire fences. However, my riding buddy - also a non-American tourist - was not so keen. The reason why was a simple one - 'don't they have guns in America?'. Actually they have guns in Switzerland too and there is a lot of national service practice going on at the weekends. In fact weekends are quite wonderful in Switzerland as the shops are closed and people go out and do things including going to honour system stalls. The guns though are quite terrifying if you are cycling as you can turn a corner on a descent and feel like you are suddenly in a firing range (rather than right next to one). I have to say that the Californian produce looked good but was not that good when I bought it in the shops. The land of plenty turned out to be quite expensive and bland to European tastes. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the roadside appearance of plenty was not so good but the food bought in shops was as expensive as everything is in Switzerland (so no surprise) but delightful to taste. The relative abundance of Swiss roadside honour stalls doesn't just say things about how honest people are in squeaky clean Switzerland, it also says something about the produce being of value rather than bland.
- BurningFrog 7y agoThis is a sign of a deeply trust based society. I don't think articles like these are good for the system's health :)
- yborg 7y agoYou really think a significant number of people are going to get on a plane to Switzerland and then drive to Vaud to steal pumpkins?
- BurningFrog 7y agoI there are always marginal effects, as an economist would put it.
- microtherion 7y agoIt's also a society with really high wages, so the barrier to staffing a stand is higher.
- BurningFrog 7y agoSan Francisco also has really high wages. I don't see a lot of similar arrangements around here...
- short_sells_poo 7y agoSan Francisco has really high wages in a specific sector. How much does a retail job earn though? In Switzerland, an entry level retail worker starts at around $4500 a month and goes up from there.
- test1235 7y agoHonesty boxes are common here in UK countryside too. Same as any country tho', it probably wouldn't work in the towns and cities. I guess the number of people in a city make it more likely that there'd be enough 'cheaters' to ruin the whole enterprise and not make it worthwhile.
- bongobongo 7y agoExactly. It’s a scaling issue.
- canofbars 7y agoYou also have enough customers that having someone manage the store doesn't cost very much per sale.
- jt2190 7y agoEven retail establishments with staff and security systems balance the extra costs of these “loss prevention” measures against customer convenience. The goal is never perfect security but sufficient security. Large retailers typically set targets on loss and try to minimize them, within reason. Farm stands that operate like this have simply found a reasonable cost/benefit trade off. (There’s an apple orchard near Boston that leaves their store unattended for the slow winter months... My wife pops in a few times to buy some more apples.)
- vram11 7y agoLoss from stealing was called 'shrinkage' by retail industry people, in Sam Walton's autobiography 'Made in America'. As you say, they expected to have some. I wonder why it can't be prevented 100%.
- rootusrootus 7y agoBecause stopping retail theft 100% requires an inconvenience to normal customers that is off-putting and will cause them to go somewhere else.
- canofbars 7y agoI certainly wouldn't shop somewhere that required my bags and pockets to be searched every time I left the store.
- froindt 7y agoPrevention to 100% would be costly. They have diminishing marginal returns. Why would someone pay $50,000/year for a hypothetical system which would theoretically catch everyone and fill out the police report automatically when the store experiences a tiny $300 annual shrinkage loss?
- unmole 7y agoLying for Money makes the case that the optimal amount of fraud in any real world system is non-zero. Fraud prevention has direct and indirect costs. At some point the costs of fraud prevention will exceed the cost of fraud itself.
- NoInputSignal 7y agoI've seen this with firewood in California. It probably costs the producer more to have someone there then it does losing a portion of stock to theft.
- ghaff 7y agoIt's very common with firewood bundles in areas of New England where, in the summer, a lot of tourists are buying firewood to burn at a campground. Quite a few houses have some bundles of firewood out that they probably cut themselves from dead trees/branches on the property along with an honor box. Very small-time supplemental income operations that aren't nearly worth someone hanging out all day for maybe only $20 or so.
- muro 7y agoI've seen some in Germany (e.g. Pick flowers, put coins into the box), but I like the ones I found in Switzerland more - larger selection including fruit, vegetables and eggs. Maybe I just got lucky.
- sonnyblarney 7y agoThey have this in Ontario.
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoThere's a farm stall in Bolinas, California that sells produce with the honor system. It's the first one I've encountered in my life. I had no idea this was much more widespread.
- blfr 7y agoThis is what high trust society looks like.
- dliff 7y agoI was recently in Zurich and entered a small shop that was honor system. Scan and pay for your own items, no staff. Small food items, drinks, wine available. Might be different since there could be cameras or some other form of accountability, but I found it interesting.
- jopsen 7y agoWould police every bother investigating simple theft from such a store.. Even if there is excellent video and identification?
- bufferoverflow 7y agoYou have to understand that Switzerland is a very rich and very expensive country. Stealing some fruits would be a really dumb crime to commit, when you can steal much more expensive things easily.
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoI saw one of these in Washington State in October 2016, and I thought it was super cool. I bought some sweet corn and BBQ sauce :) https://imgur.com/a/wmka5yA https://imgur.com/a/wmka5yA
- tapvt 7y agoVery common in rural New England as well. This may be common in many other rural areas, I’d guess.
- interurban 7y agoLike several other commenters noted, these types of roadside stands are prevalent throughout rural areas of the US. You usually only see them on side roads though, if you're just passing through on the highways you'll miss them.
- hirundo 7y agoI ran into this in California at a small farm along Highway 1 a few miles north of Santa Cruz. It's a scenic ocean side rural locale but near all the big Bay Area cities and frequented by day visitors from there. There was a shack with a good variety of their produce laid out, with price labels. Up front there was a cash box, with about $40 already in it, and a sign that said pay here. This was late '90s. I really hope that it continued to work for them for a long time after that. I haven't seen that elsewhere before or since. I overpaid as a tip. I hope that happens enough to offset cheats.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoYou can still see this in rural new england, at least, though I expect with far less non-local traffic than california 1.
- dang 7y agoI've seen them in the town of Sonoma as recently as last season.
- davidjnelson 7y agoThere’s one in Soquel ( next to Santa Cruz ) I visited last year. Really neat feel to it.
- gmac 7y agoIn rural south west England, on holiday last year, the well-stocked local farm shop operated not only an honesty box, but an honesty credit card machine, with detailed instructions how to put a transaction through. The merchant receipt went in the honesty box, of course. I was astonished but pretty pleased, because I was low on cash and far from any ATM.
- Symbiote 7y agoPayM would be the easy implementation of this, it's the generic mobile phone based bank transfer system for the UK. In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland the same shop would have a phone number. You type the phone number into the app (which shows the name as confirmation), the amount, and press send. It's not tied to any particular bank. Unfortunately, the UK system isn't really catching on. Instead, my friends seem to be using proprietary apps which only work for friends at the same bank.
- yborg 7y agoAlso found in rural Japan. https://en.japantravel.com/saitama/honesty-shops/59159 https://en.japantravel.com/saitama/honesty-shops/59159
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jMyles 7y agoLast year we found a place on the Oregon coast that had a little freezer with Salmon and Halibut. Also a table with Cherries, Peaches, and a few vegetables with an honor box and, interestingly we thought, QR codes to accept BTC and ETH. Halibut was killer, but I paid in USD because my phone was dead.
- selimthegrim 7y agoHaha can I get a +/- 10 mi general area to not kill the goose?
- jMyles 7y agoOn the 101, South of Garibaldi, North of Lincoln City. :-)
- mruts 7y agoSeems to me that the farmers will need to charge a premium to make up for theft, assuming that the total amount stolen is greater than the cost of someone sitting there. For rural areas where turnover is low and where there’s more trust, this system sounds pretty effective. On a side note, this isn’t exactly an honor system, as the cash is still locked away I’m guessing.
- jandrewrogers 7y agoAs others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock their doors. Bartering local goods and services is such an integral part of the rural social fabric that everyone has an interest in making it work well with minimal transaction costs. Part of what makes it work in rural areas is that no one is really anonymous. The local social networks tend to be very quick to identify bad actors.
- vkou 7y ago> As others have noted, this is common in rural America, which tend toward being very high-trust communities such that many people don't even bother to lock their doors There's a practical reason for that, too. If you're being burglarized in a rural community, a locked door will be an obstacle for ~10 seconds, and you'll come home to just as much of your stuff stolen, plus a broken door to deal with.
- MrMember 7y agoIn a very small town near where I grew up every household had a key to the gas station. They could fill up whenever they wanted and leave the money on the counter.
- moroleth 7y agoIn Paris pavements are routinely lined with stacks of books, magazines, comics, etc. The idea being 'you take some, you leave some. Or just take, at least the books will find some use.' I've seen it abroad so it's probably widespread. Slightly more tangential, but people also often leave furniture (or clothes) they don't need outside for the taking, often because they're moving places. You notify the municipality, put up a post-it with a number on it so that they can eventually identify and carry the stuff away if it finds to takers, but in the meantime other people are free to help themselves. I have friends who would completely furnished their apartment with furniture found on the street.
- _bxg1 7y ago> the U.S...[is] among the countries where the honor system isn’t any novelty. I've seen plenty of roadside stands, but I've never seen one of these in my life
- WalterBright 7y agoMy first exposure to the honor system was at Caltech. It worked very well there, and it was really nice to not have to obsessively lock your dorm room door every time you walk out. I've since used the honor system in my business dealings, and it works well enough to allow me to continue with it.
- Stratoscope 7y agoOne of the reasons this worked so well at Caltech was that every freshman's first night included an introduction to lock picking. If you locked your door, you might expect a polite note like "I noticed your door was locked. Thanks, it gave me a chance to test my lock picking skills."
- WalterBright 7y agoWhen I attended in the 70's, lock picking was there but wasn't much of a big deal. The protocol was: door is open, come on in. Door is closed, don't come in. As simple as that. My favorite was the bathroom, which had a sign on it with a rotating pointer, and 4 quadrants labelled: 1. men 2. women 3. don't know 4. don't care where you selected one on entry. For the 70s, it was way ahead of its time :-)
- stordoff 7y ago> door is open, come on in. Door is closed, don't come in Same protocol at Cambridge (UK), at least in the rooms with two doors (outer door open: come in, outer door closed: do not disturb/I'm out). Lock picking wasn't really a thing, but one of the tutors did point out to us that the locks in a specific corridor could be opened by sliding a knife down the edge of the mechanism (it was "fixed" by screwing a steel plate to the _outside_ of the door, which felt like missing the point somewhat). I'm possibly missing something obvious, but could you explain why you'd need to pick a quadrant? I'm not seeing why that is necessary.
- WalterBright 7y ago
- JoshMnem 7y agoIt's also like that in the Massachusetts countryside.
- aloukissas 7y agoVery similar situation in Ikaria (Greece) - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where...
- lruor 7y agoThe honor system was also used in World of Warcraft: https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0) https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0)
- wahlis 7y agoHere in Sweden I've noted that some sellers have started adding a Swish-number for payments. Swish is a Swedish payment service where you basically send money to a phone number. This is great since the only risk for the seller now is the produce. The cash can not be stolen.
- lukego 7y agoThat sounds very Swedish! The nearest I've seen to that in Switzerland was a farm with a book where you can write your name, address, and how much you owe them. That was on a slightly larger farm (~100 cows and pigs) that sold expensive things like cold-cut meat too. I live in a tourist region of Switzerland and here the local supermarkets carry local produce e.g. cheeses and sausages bearing the name and address of the farmer who produced them. In our village we can buy cheese, eggs, honey, and some preserves by letting ourselves into the cellar of the local farmer and leaving money in a jar.
- staticautomatic 7y agoHow bucolic
- tathougies 7y agoI've driven extensively in California, Hawaii, and other western states, and this is extremely common.
- dnautics 7y agoI just came across and patronized an honor system farm stand in Bolinas Ca yesterday.
- myrandomcomment 7y agoThere a a few places off of summit rd. In NorCal that do the same thing.
- thrower123 7y agoAny place with a high trust society tends to do this. I see farm stands and camp wood stands with honor boxes all over rural New England.
- rossdavidh 7y agoThe book "Freakonomics" details a similar bagel-selling system, where they would put bagels in the break room of workplaces, and you would pay on the honor system. After years of collecting data, the owner realized he had been doing a real-time, real-life experiment on how honest people are. You don't know WHO took without paying, but you can tell HOW MANY of your bagels were paid for. There's analysis of how it varies by time of year, type of workplace, etc. Fascinating.
- mpfundstein 7y agoMind telling tthe findings? :-)
- lawrenceyan 7y agotl;dr Most people are generally honest, and act accordingly. A few people will consistently take advantage of the system, which slightly lowers the average.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoFrom memory, one thing that surprised me was holidays. Thefts decrease in the days before a holiday that's basically just a day off for most people, but thefts increase in the days before a holiday that has a strong tradition for getting together with the extended family.
- orblivion 7y ago"I just spent 400 bucks on Christmas presents. I can't afford to pay for this bagel." ... ?
- saddestcatever 7y agoI've always wondering if this was a money issue (ex: how expensive holidays can be), or a stress issue (ex: distracted about the 20 things that need to get done today before the inlaws arrive / deadlines because of employees being out of office)
- 7y ago
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoThis happens all over rural southwestern ontario as well. I never thought it was strange or newsworthy as a result.
- gorbypark 7y agoYeah, I really miss the road side corn from back home.
- rv-de 7y agoin many German offices you may find the Snackbox (http://www.snackbox.de/ http://www.snackbox.de/). it's based on trust based payment and they'll cover the difference. i genuinely love those concepts.
- bookofjoe 7y agoI saw these in rural New Zealand in 1982.
- khuey 7y agoThey're still there in 2019.
- tomcam 7y agoVery common here in Western Washington (Microsoft country). We get honey, flowers, and produce that way
- gumby 7y agoNot sure what’s so extraordinary about this — I’ve used such rural systems in France, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the USA.
- kenneth 7y agoGrowing up in Switzerland, when we lived on the outskirts of Bern, we would get our milk from such a dispenser at a farm. It was a 5min walk to the farm, and we'd bring our own bottle and fill it up from a spout. The milk was fresh and unpasteurized, so we'd have to leet it sit in the fridge for a few hours to separate it from its cream.
- omnibrain 7y agoHere in southern germany ots of farmers sell Apples and other fruit (and sometimes vegetables) this way. Some also have fields of flowers where you can cut some and pay at a honor box. Though generally you put your money in a heavily bolted down box through a narrow slit. In Scotland, especially on the Hebrides I saw various types of honor stalls. One sold all kinds of food, prepared and unprepared even warm pies, another one was just a Box with cakes, brownies and muffins and some thermos with tea and coffee and some dishes placed at a POI. In both cases you put your money just into a carboard box, so you could even get change.
- duxup 7y agoThis isn't that unusual at roadside stands I see in some rural places in the US. If someone isn't there they just leave a box or bucket with a sign.
- okennedy 7y agoThis phenomenon isn't unique to Switzerland, or even Europe. Farmstands throughout Western NY and PA have similar setups: Grab some fresh fruits, veggies, eggs, etc... and leave your cash in the box.
- csomar 7y ago> Unmanned stalls with vegetables can be found all over the world. Germany, Norway, the U.S., Australia, Canada, the UK are among the countries where the honor system isn’t any novelty. This seems to be a property of the rural community rather than the country/people. The same happens in Tunisia in some very rural/remote places. The farmer will put their produce on the road, and then the buyers will collect from the road. This was a surprise to me as Tunisia cities are plagued with vandalism and property theft.
- lazyjones 7y agoMapping where such systems actually work well would produce the best "quality of life" guide for me. It just takes a few bad apples to break these forever and communities in their naivety often don't notice until it's too late.
- antpls 7y agoHow does that actually work ? It takes only one thief to steal the entire box of payments. Do they have hidden camera to dissuade people of stealing the box ?
- gingabriska 7y agoOnce I broke the signal in Switzerland and outran the cops sent back the car to the countryside and took bus to the hotel just to find the traffic ticket waiting for me in the room I booked. I am still not sure how they knew where I am going and which hotel I'll be staying at.