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That's interesting! I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. Or

by koyote 6y ago

That's interesting! I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. Or is it just a matter of convenience?

pinkorchid 6y ago
A very similar system is also common in small towns (population in the low hundreds or fewer) in Spain. Every few days a baker will come driving their van and selling bread, or a truck with fruit, etc. Even doctors and priests follow a similar pattern. It's likely that one could drive for 30 minutes and find an even better selection. That assumes car ownership and the ability to drive, which is not widespread in the aging population in rural areas.
- solotronics 6y ago
  My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    On the contrary. When I lived in such a village on vacation, it was incredibly liberating. The bakery guy would have a promotion every week with something new for you to try, but apart from that you didn't have to make any decisions. I find choosing between 20 almost identical flavors of sandwich bread in your average supermarket to be much more mentally exhausting. And since you knew which weekly special everyone else was trying out these days, you had a shared easy conversation topic with anyone. Plus, to my big surprise the quality of frozen fish and vegetable packs was impeccable. Now, years later, I know that pretty much all "fresh" fish that you see in a supermarket is frozen for transport. So there's no difference.
    - summm 6y ago
      In Germany most fish is anyway required to be frozen for food safety: correctly freezing kills most parasites.
  - distances 6y ago
    Heh, and my first reaction was that this is awesome. Different viewpoints I guess.
- dirktheman 6y ago
  I used to work in a very small village in France. The bakery from the nearby city would bring a van full of bread to the campsite near the town, the reception would function as a 'depot de pain' for both tourists and villagers.
  - tasogare 6y ago
    In Northern France there is also the "baraque à frites" truck which comes to villages and sell French fries.
- joking 6y ago
  Now they even accept request by WhatsApp. You can go to the nearest big town, but it’s much more convenient when they bring it to your door, and a van can serve 10-15 small towns each day.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. I still think about the UK. I cannot imagine anywhere in the UK being more than an hour or two from anywhere else.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Why? UK includes Scotland, and you can easily go 600+ miles from a point in northern Scotland to southern England. Even in England, Liverpool is 200+ miles from London, and there are farther places in England.
  - xeromal 6y ago
    Yeah, I think it's just someone from the US thinking in their terms. Florida is 447 miles itself.
  - irrational 6y ago
    600 miles? I had no idea Great Britain was that small. What is the widest distance West to East?
    - dtparr 6y ago
      Per Encyclopedia Britannica[0], 300 miles is the widest, and no part is more than 75 miles from the sea. It's smaller in land mass than 10 US states, coming in just behind Oregon and just ahead of Idaho. 0 - https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom
- distantaidenn 6y ago
  I’m American but was living in Seoul at the time. A couple friends and I took an overnight trip to Busan. We were having lunch at a small restaurant, and my friend asks the staff if she can order takeout and have it sent back to her home in Seoul. Mind you Busan to Seoul is 325km. This was mind-boggling to me. I asked her, “How long is that gonna take to get there?!” She was puzzled, looked at me and said, “It’ll be there later tonight.” She then laughed and continued, “Hey, this is Korea!” The delivery network of small highly developed countries is simply amazing.
gshdg 6y ago
In densely populated areas like much of Europe, a half hour drive is considered a pretty meaningful distance. Plus a lot fewer people have cars than in the US.
kungato 6y ago
Many people don't own a car because they can't afford it or are too old to drive it. Owning a (registered) car costs with gas yearly about 1 net monthly salary. Croatia is small but even so very sparsely populated. 1/4 of population is in the capital metro area
- tasuki 6y ago
  > very sparsely populated That's very relative. With 72 ppl/km^2, I wouldn't call Croatia "sparsely populated".
  - jon-wood 6y ago
    Looking at nationwide statistics can be misleading, often you'll find that while on average you get a figure like that, almost all of it is centred on a few large cities with anything outside those cities consisting of scattered small villages a few hundred people living in them.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      Looking at land use in places like can be surprising - e.g. a great er percentage of the UK land area is peat bogs than is built on: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.74...
TooSmugToFail 6y ago
It's true that a supermarket or a shop is about 30 min drive for most places, but those rural areas are typically poorer, and populated with the elderly, so driving is not an option.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  And the supermarkets and multi-good shops are usually the new and expensive places to shop. It’s the farmers markets and stalls (and maybe the baker) that have the good pricing, but fewer availability of hours. I hate how North American farmer markets in big cities are turning hipster and expensive unless you’re really careful. Direct from the farmer is supposed to be cheaper!
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Twenty odd years ago, we had a system like that though, despite there being multiple grocery stores in walking distance. Some people have mobility issues meaning they can't walk / cycle to the shop, but a grocery store on wheels is fine. It was called the SRV Wagen, which stood for "sell rationally together" when the scheme was started in the 70's. There are still 100 of these vans active last year apparently. Anyway, think of it differently, instead of a need, why not a want? It's not that different from having groceries delivered to your home. Maybe not as scalable, but it's a valid buisiness model, especially in rural areas. Nowadays I think it's becoming more of a need again; with the migration of people out of the small towns, more and more grocery stores have decided to pack it up because they just don't get enough customers anymore. A mobile shop that frequents multiple towns every week is a valid replacements. And as another commenter mentioned, it's not limited to just groceries; we also had a fishmonger, and everyone remembers the ice cream truck. I don't see why hipster food trucks don't actually truck around either. A more recent example, an ice cream truck would park out front of office buildings and ring its bell. A tiny coffee trike would park in the train station in the morning, then do the rounds at the office buildings nearby throughout the day. The important thing with those services is that they consistently appear on the same day and roughly hour, and that they have some kind of audio cue.
madaxe_again 6y ago
Small, but the transport network isn’t necessarily reliable. Mountains are a big obstacle. Croatia, like most of the balkans, is really mountainous. When it’s not mountains it’s islands. Nightmare for transport infrastructure development. A lot of rural Europe has laughably poor mountain infrastructure - dirt roads, often badly damaged, are sometimes the only way in or out of a village, and when it rains, the guy with the 4X4 truck is your only ticket in or out. I’ve lived in rural wales, three miles up a paved but steep and narrow lane - if you meet someone, you’re looking at ten minutes of reversing on a bad day - no passing places. I’ve been stuck in the middle of two opposing convoys and one person refusing to back up, and it’s just... well, it makes you not want to go out. Sometimes, someone gets a motorhome stuck on the bridge, and the village is cut off for a day or more. The nearest store is 30 minutes drive away, if the road is clear and the bridge is open. I’ve lived in rural Bosnia, in a village that you can only reach by a track that looks and drives worse than most river beds. It’s only 15km or so from Sarajevo, but it takes nearly 90 minutes to get there, and there’s little inbetween. Here in Portugal, a 15km line of sight is a 60km drive - it’s a mountainous region, and again, most of the roads are dirt, single track. The nearest village with a shop to me is 4km away by drone - 28km by road - two rivers in deep valleys between here and there, and only so many medieval bridges are passable by car. The nearest modern bridge is so far off it may as well be in Spain - oh wait, it is! For someone like me (young, strong, hands on) getting around is a pain in the ass. I never know which journey is going to turn into grappling with straps and jacks in mud. For someone elderly, going out is a daunting prospect. What if I don’t get home? What if I get stuck? What if I break down and nobody passes for two days? The importance of these services can’t be underestimated - I don’t think these places could continue to exist without them - their population is too low to support permanent stores.
- Joe-Z 6y ago
  The places you choose to live in sound pretty interesting. And diverse! May I ask: Is this work-related that you live country-side in so many different places, or are you a restless soul? :)
  - madaxe_again 6y ago

by koyote 6y ago

That's interesting! I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. Or is it just a matter of convenience?

pinkorchid 6y ago

A very similar system is also common in small towns (population in the low hundreds or fewer) in Spain. Every few days a baker will come driving their van and selling bread, or a truck with fruit, etc. Even doctors and priests follow a similar pattern. It's likely that one could drive for 30 minutes and find an even better selection. That assumes car ownership and the ability to drive, which is not widespread in the aging population in rural areas.

solotronics 6y ago
My first reaction is that this is sad but that is incredibly biased based on my expectation of having anything on demand.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  On the contrary. When I lived in such a village on vacation, it was incredibly liberating. The bakery guy would have a promotion every week with something new for you to try, but apart from that you didn't have to make any decisions. I find choosing between 20 almost identical flavors of sandwich bread in your average supermarket to be much more mentally exhausting. And since you knew which weekly special everyone else was trying out these days, you had a shared easy conversation topic with anyone. Plus, to my big surprise the quality of frozen fish and vegetable packs was impeccable. Now, years later, I know that pretty much all "fresh" fish that you see in a supermarket is frozen for transport. So there's no difference.
  - summm 6y ago
    In Germany most fish is anyway required to be frozen for food safety: correctly freezing kills most parasites.
- distances 6y ago
  Heh, and my first reaction was that this is awesome. Different viewpoints I guess.
dirktheman 6y ago
I used to work in a very small village in France. The bakery from the nearby city would bring a van full of bread to the campsite near the town, the reception would function as a 'depot de pain' for both tourists and villagers.
- tasogare 6y ago
  In Northern France there is also the "baraque à frites" truck which comes to villages and sell French fries.
joking 6y ago
Now they even accept request by WhatsApp. You can go to the nearest big town, but it’s much more convenient when they bring it to your door, and a van can serve 10-15 small towns each day.

sandworm101 6y ago

>> I would have thought Croatia to be small enough to not need such a system; i.e. supermarkets not further than half an hour drive away. I still think about the UK. I cannot imagine anywhere in the UK being more than an hour or two from anywhere else.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Why? UK includes Scotland, and you can easily go 600+ miles from a point in northern Scotland to southern England. Even in England, Liverpool is 200+ miles from London, and there are farther places in England.
- xeromal 6y ago
  Yeah, I think it's just someone from the US thinking in their terms. Florida is 447 miles itself.
- irrational 6y ago
  600 miles? I had no idea Great Britain was that small. What is the widest distance West to East?
  - dtparr 6y ago
    Per Encyclopedia Britannica[0], 300 miles is the widest, and no part is more than 75 miles from the sea. It's smaller in land mass than 10 US states, coming in just behind Oregon and just ahead of Idaho. 0 - https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom
distantaidenn 6y ago
I’m American but was living in Seoul at the time. A couple friends and I took an overnight trip to Busan. We were having lunch at a small restaurant, and my friend asks the staff if she can order takeout and have it sent back to her home in Seoul. Mind you Busan to Seoul is 325km. This was mind-boggling to me. I asked her, “How long is that gonna take to get there?!” She was puzzled, looked at me and said, “It’ll be there later tonight.” She then laughed and continued, “Hey, this is Korea!” The delivery network of small highly developed countries is simply amazing.

gshdg 6y ago

In densely populated areas like much of Europe, a half hour drive is considered a pretty meaningful distance. Plus a lot fewer people have cars than in the US.

kungato 6y ago

Many people don't own a car because they can't afford it or are too old to drive it. Owning a (registered) car costs with gas yearly about 1 net monthly salary. Croatia is small but even so very sparsely populated. 1/4 of population is in the capital metro area

tasuki 6y ago
> very sparsely populated That's very relative. With 72 ppl/km^2, I wouldn't call Croatia "sparsely populated".
- jon-wood 6y ago
  Looking at nationwide statistics can be misleading, often you'll find that while on average you get a figure like that, almost all of it is centred on a few large cities with anything outside those cities consisting of scattered small villages a few hundred people living in them.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Looking at land use in places like can be surprising - e.g. a great er percentage of the UK land area is peat bogs than is built on: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.74...

TooSmugToFail 6y ago

It's true that a supermarket or a shop is about 30 min drive for most places, but those rural areas are typically poorer, and populated with the elderly, so driving is not an option.

Scoundreller 6y ago
And the supermarkets and multi-good shops are usually the new and expensive places to shop. It’s the farmers markets and stalls (and maybe the baker) that have the good pricing, but fewer availability of hours. I hate how North American farmer markets in big cities are turning hipster and expensive unless you’re really careful. Direct from the farmer is supposed to be cheaper!

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Twenty odd years ago, we had a system like that though, despite there being multiple grocery stores in walking distance. Some people have mobility issues meaning they can't walk / cycle to the shop, but a grocery store on wheels is fine. It was called the SRV Wagen, which stood for "sell rationally together" when the scheme was started in the 70's. There are still 100 of these vans active last year apparently. Anyway, think of it differently, instead of a need, why not a want? It's not that different from having groceries delivered to your home. Maybe not as scalable, but it's a valid buisiness model, especially in rural areas. Nowadays I think it's becoming more of a need again; with the migration of people out of the small towns, more and more grocery stores have decided to pack it up because they just don't get enough customers anymore. A mobile shop that frequents multiple towns every week is a valid replacements. And as another commenter mentioned, it's not limited to just groceries; we also had a fishmonger, and everyone remembers the ice cream truck. I don't see why hipster food trucks don't actually truck around either. A more recent example, an ice cream truck would park out front of office buildings and ring its bell. A tiny coffee trike would park in the train station in the morning, then do the rounds at the office buildings nearby throughout the day. The important thing with those services is that they consistently appear on the same day and roughly hour, and that they have some kind of audio cue.

madaxe_again 6y ago

Small, but the transport network isn’t necessarily reliable. Mountains are a big obstacle. Croatia, like most of the balkans, is really mountainous. When it’s not mountains it’s islands. Nightmare for transport infrastructure development. A lot of rural Europe has laughably poor mountain infrastructure - dirt roads, often badly damaged, are sometimes the only way in or out of a village, and when it rains, the guy with the 4X4 truck is your only ticket in or out. I’ve lived in rural wales, three miles up a paved but steep and narrow lane - if you meet someone, you’re looking at ten minutes of reversing on a bad day - no passing places. I’ve been stuck in the middle of two opposing convoys and one person refusing to back up, and it’s just... well, it makes you not want to go out. Sometimes, someone gets a motorhome stuck on the bridge, and the village is cut off for a day or more. The nearest store is 30 minutes drive away, if the road is clear and the bridge is open. I’ve lived in rural Bosnia, in a village that you can only reach by a track that looks and drives worse than most river beds. It’s only 15km or so from Sarajevo, but it takes nearly 90 minutes to get there, and there’s little inbetween. Here in Portugal, a 15km line of sight is a 60km drive - it’s a mountainous region, and again, most of the roads are dirt, single track. The nearest village with a shop to me is 4km away by drone - 28km by road - two rivers in deep valleys between here and there, and only so many medieval bridges are passable by car. The nearest modern bridge is so far off it may as well be in Spain - oh wait, it is! For someone like me (young, strong, hands on) getting around is a pain in the ass. I never know which journey is going to turn into grappling with straps and jacks in mud. For someone elderly, going out is a daunting prospect. What if I don’t get home? What if I get stuck? What if I break down and nobody passes for two days? The importance of these services can’t be underestimated - I don’t think these places could continue to exist without them - their population is too low to support permanent stores.

Joe-Z 6y ago
The places you choose to live in sound pretty interesting. And diverse! May I ask: Is this work-related that you live country-side in so many different places, or are you a restless soul? :)
- madaxe_again 6y ago