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I love articles like this. I’d happily read a book with each chapter breaking down the unit economics of a given type of business. Also, I can’t help but recou
by lukev 3y ago
I love articles like this. I’d happily read a book with each chapter breaking down the unit economics of a given type of business.
Also, I can’t help but recount an anecdote from the last time I was at an all-you-can-eat place… conveyor-belt sushi with my kids.
A pair of guys came in and sat at the table next to us. They said a loud ironic prayer begging indulgence for “the sins we are about to commit” as they sat down… then proceeded to unwrap all the fish rolls, eating the contents as sashimi and discarding the rice and veggies on a tray on their table. By the time we left there was probably 8 lbs of rice on the tray… can’t believe they weren’t kicked out.
- ww520 3y agoDeliberate food wasters are despicable.
- stronglikedan 3y agoIt's rice. It's not like they're wasting anything significant, like the meat of an animal that gave its life. But still, the restaurant should have charged them for it at least, like every other all you can eat sushi place would have.
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 3y ago"like the meat of an animal that gave its life." - that's generally not how it works.
- standardUser 3y agoOutside of some restaurants in South Korea, we generally only eat dead animals.
- progbits 3y agoI assume the GP takes issue with the word "gave", as it was not given but taken.
- tomrod 3y agoCan something be taken without being given?
- 2023throwawayy 3y agoIf I kill you and take your land/stuff/body, did you give it or did I take it?
- tomrod 3y agoBoth.
- standardUser 3y agoA question for the pedants.
- jrflowers 3y agoNo. That is why there is no word or concept for theft
- rad_gruchalski 3y agoYes, it can be “taken away from one”. Frankly, quite forcibly. It’s a rather simple concept to understand.
- strken 3y agoBit of a tangent, but nearly all foods have an animal death rate per calorie, so there's no such thing as insignificant food. The exchange rate is usually better for grains than for e.g. chicken or even beef[0], though. [0] https://animalvisuals.org/projects/1mc/ https://animalvisuals.org/projects/1mc/ Note that I'm a little skeptical of the numbers here, particularly those for grass-fed beef. Not that it matters for the purpose of claiming rice has a cost in lives.
- senkora 3y agoRelevant SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-10-09 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-10-09
- kjkjadksj 3y agoKind of an interesting link. Another thing to keep in mind is that the rice patty being there means a natural habitat is now lost to make way for the farm. In truth there is no guilt free meal or anything else.
- eru 3y agoWell, we can relatively easily put a dollar value on human lives, too. So any kind of waste that we can put a dollar value on, also has a value in human lives. Make of that what you will.
- jefftk 3y agoI think this is an interesting idea, and people inclined towards veganism might be able to better achieve their goals by going for a suffering-minimizing diet, but the studies this is based on aren't very good. For example: > 33 field mice were fitted with radio collars and tracked before and after harvest. The researchers found that only 3 percent of them were actually killed by the combine harvester (amounting to one mouse). An additional 52 percent of them (17 mice) were killed following harvest by predators such as owls and weasels, possibly due to their loss of the crop cover. It is unknown how many of these mice would have been eaten by owls or weasels anyway. That last sentence is key: without a control you can't draw much from this experiment. Additionally, while they say "animals" many times they're not clear on which ones they're including. The decision on whether to consider insects would be especially important.
- JohnFen 3y agoAll food waste is significant.
- cm2012 3y agoQuite the opposite
- imadierich 3y ago[dead]
- adrian_b 3y agoNot really. Carbohydrates are much cheaper than proteins and fat. Proteins and fat of vegetable origin are cheaper than those of animal origin, but they come accompanied by excessive amounts of carbohydrates. The most efficient way of getting food for human consumption for now is to dump as waste most of the carbohydrates from vegetables and retain only the valuable proteins and fat (this can be done at home for instance by making bread but washing the dough before baking in order to remove most of the starch, producing thus a protein-enriched bread, or by removing completely the starch by extra washing of the dough, converting in into gluten a.k.a. seitan). The high proportion of carbohydrates from vegetable food can be used completely only by those who do hard physical work, but not by those who have a sedentary lifestyle, who must necessarily dump the carbohydrates as waste, either directly or indirectly (by buying food where the carbohydrates have already been wasted in various ways, including as energy sources for animals that have been raised for becoming food). In the future it might be possible to develop better ways to use the carbohydrates that must be wasted now, by converting them with high efficiency into proteins or fat, by using bacterial or fungal cultures.
- JohnFen 3y agoAre you arguing that wasting meat is more significant than wasting vegetation? I agree, but that doesn't diminish the fact that wasting both is significant. Are you arguing that everyone should be vegetarian? That's a topic I was not even remotely touching on.
- mc32 3y agoIt was rice but rice is a filler. Don’t know that the ratio is but let’s say 1:4 non-rice to rice. Dumping the rice skews that a lot.
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y agoIronically the word "sushi" refers to the rice, not the topping. Rice properly seasoned with vinegar and sugar is the one essential ingredient in sushi. If there's no rice it's no longer sushi.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoThe word has a broader meaning in English, though. We'll often refer to things like raw fish alone, ie sashimi, as sushi.
- BenjiWiebe 3y agoThankfully there's still us pedants explaining repeatedly the difference between sashimi and sushi to anyone who will listen, and quite often those who won't. I've never had either.
- mc32 3y agoIt’s okay, in Japan, for lots of people spaghetti means any kind of pasta dish.
- Delk 3y agoRice has a significant climate footprint due to the methane produced by the agriculture. It also requires a lot of fresh water to grow. (How much of an issue the latter is depends on the local conditions, of course.)
- cm2012 3y agoThere's few things in your life that will impact the environment less than not finishing a bowl of rice.
- serf 3y agoyou're right, but a lifestyle that makes a habit of adding those small things up left and right becomes impactful quickly.
- Delk 3y agoThat may be true, if done on occasion rather than regularly. But just because it's "only" rice doesn't make it insignificant, even though rice is such a staple that it may seem so. That's what I commented on. Food in general is a significant part of our ecological footprint. Rice has a relatively high impact for a crop. Of course it's still in a different ballpark than beef.
- ghodith 3y agoDepends on the amount of rice obviously. Rice farming definitely has an impact on the environment in bulk. Now divide that by the amount of rice in a roll and we'll see how significant it is. I'm guessing it's very, very small.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoDon't forget as well that it's not only a case of them not eating the rice, they also massively increased their intake of fish by skipping the carbs.
- CaptainZapp 3y agoIt's a safe assumption that such all you can eat sushi was of mediocre quality. But, when it comes to the real deal. Sushi from a tier one or two Japanese sushi chef then the rice is actually the most important factor in making good sushi. Discarding the rice would be seen as comparatively barbarian as dunking a freshly made piece of sushi by a good chef into this mixture of soya sauce and ersatz "wasabi".
- easymodex 3y agoSomeone had to plant it, then water it and cultivate it, then harvest it, then package it, then ship it god knows how many miles, then the restaurant cooked it, prepared it, then they just threw it away. Then comes the trash processing chain. How is that not a completely useless waste of energy, time, money and resources?
- jstarfish 3y agoThis is a very human-centric view ;) I'm in the "every life is sacred" camp, but...even if you do kill one animal and leave it to rot, it's not a total waste, just a "cruel" one. Other things feed off of the carcasses of animals the same as you or I do. We just consider all other organisms beneath us, so if we kill and discard something, we write it off as a total waste. Birds, dogs, rodents and microorganisms disagree.
- oatmeal1 3y agoMore despicable than other kinds of wasters? Eating only the part of the food you like can't be that morally different from buying a sporty car that wastes gas, for example.
- avgcorrection 3y agoThey hacked the business model.
- byproxy 3y agoI've never been to an AYCE sushi joint that didn't charge for the leftovers described in this example, for what it's worth.
- mulmen 3y agoYeah every conveyor belt place I have been to just charges by the plate.
- paulorlando 3y agoCheck out a book called Growth Units, which dives into unit economics across different business types.
- gnicholas 3y ago> I’d happily read a book with each chapter breaking down the unit economics of a given type of business. Not 100% on-point, but check out Roadside MBA, [1] which was written by a trio of MBA professors. Instead of using the case study method with examples from huge companies, they do a deep dive on small businesses that they visited on cross-country roadtrips. Very entertaining and accessible. 1: https://www.amazon.com/Roadside-MBA-Entrepreneurs-Executives-Business/dp/1455598895 https://www.amazon.com/Roadside-MBA-Entrepreneurs-Executives...
- hilux 3y agoThe author (Paul Oyer, Yale MBA) also has some entertaining videos, and a book, on the economics of online dating.
- gnicholas 3y agoI actually reached out to him to see if he would sign a copy of the book for my daughter, with whom I read the book during COVID. He was happy to do so, and did the same for his new book on the economics of sports. I don't plan to read the book about online dating with my daughter, but perhaps she'll read it on her own someday!
- m_0x 3y agoThe hardcover costs $5. I think it's the cheapest brand new hardcover price I've seen. Edit: It's $5 for a used edition. Then my comment is now moo.
- lelanthran 3y ago> Edit: It's $5 for a used edition. Then my comment is now moo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62necDwQb5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62necDwQb5E
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoI've toyed around with the idea of doing an article where the spreadsheet gets progressively more complicated with how to model major business types. Maybe I should do it!
- treyfitty 3y agoPlease do. I for one would be interested!
- itishappy 3y agoSeconded!
- mosselman 3y agoThirded
- AH4oFVbPT4f8 3y agoI would subscribe to this too!
- dotancohen 3y agoI'm sure you get the idea, but I'll go forth as well. (Pun intended) In my opinion you could teach both economics and common spreadsheet usage. Just please do not make it Excel-specific, many people here use Linux desktops. I would suggest LO Calc as it runs everywhere, or maybe Google Sheets as a distant second.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoThanks for the suggestion! I was planning Google Sheets, since I'm on Linux and don't have excel. I am hoping for something I can embed in the actual article. I didn't even know about LO Calc. I'll check it out.
- anjanb 3y ago
- stevenwoo 3y agoSometimes NPR's Planet Money podcast does this but it's generally 10-15 minutes at a pop coverage of a specific theory or news item for general audience, they covered buffets recently in a different way https://www.npr.org/2023/10/27/1197954459/all-you-can-eat-buffets-economics https://www.npr.org/2023/10/27/1197954459/all-you-can-eat-bu...
- WheatMillington 3y agoI find NPR Planet Money to be the shallowest and most unsatisfying of takes possible on pretty much every issue they take on.
- stevenwoo 3y agoIt’s often the starting point for me to investigate something further, even This American Life might mention something and I have to look it up for proper context.
- 3abiton 3y agoAny better recommendations? I used to listen to 99% invisible, but the quality is not always sustained. Planet Money is rather entertaining still.
- stevenwoo 3y agoSorry, no, it was just easy for me to get into this one because I’ve listened to it on the radio for so long I know what to expect style wise.
- euroderf 3y agoHave pondered slurping down pizza toppings and discarding the crusts...
- CrazyStat 3y agoI had an acquaintance about a decade ago who did this on the grounds that they were “gluten sensitive”. It was weird.
- SoftTalker 3y agoPeople eating “low carb” also do this. It’s recommended in the Atkins book IIRC.
- eru 3y agoMy cousin who has Coeliac disease used to do this every so often. We also made pizza with a non-wheat base for her. Can't really fault her for this weirdness, she has it rough enough.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoI'd be interested in seeing a study on different health outcomes for crust-eaters and crust-avoiders in their 30s and 40s. Do crust-avoiders (or hambuger-bun avoiders) suffer less from obesity or type 2 diabetes due to getting that much less intake of carbs?
- 3y ago
- _jcyi 3y agoKicked out for what? If they want to disincentivize wasting rice, they should charge for leftovers and offer sashimi as an upsell. If they don't, that's on the restaurant.
- wizerdrobe 3y agoUltimately depends on the restaurant - we had an AYCE sushi, hibachi restaurant we loved with a style different than a conveyor belt that gracefully handled the issue. The restaurant had a to-go by-weight option. For the dine in patrons, you would check boxes on a menu slip with your order, quantity, etc. Their menu included a simple request that patrons reasonably finish each plate before submitting a new order, that being honest kept their prices reasonable, and that patrons wasting entire orders would be charged on a per-weight basis for the wasted order at their discretion.
- jimjimjim 3y agoThat line of thinking usually pairs with 'If there isn't a law against it then it must be Ok'. So the world becomes burdened with complex rules and laws to prevent people having to live in a hellscape of Jerks.
- _jcyi 3y agoI don't eat rice; I've been strictly keto for over a decade. My health choices make me a jerk? Some people are allergic to rice. Some people are on medically prescribed diets. Maybe there's an obscure religion that forbids eating rice. Some people just don't like rice. Are they all jerks too? That restaurant wouldn't be my preference, but if I did have to be there for an important reason, I certainly wouldn't be bullied into eating something I didn't want to eat. I'm generally strict about wasting food, but in that situation I wouldn't feel even slightly guilty about it.
- JohnFen 3y agoOrdering a dish that is mostly rice knowing that you won't/can't eat it is being a jerk, yes. I don't know about that restaurant, but I've never seen a sushi place that didn't also serve sashimi.
- jjulius 3y ago>By the time we left there was probably 8 lbs of rice on the tray… can’t believe they weren’t kicked out. Why should they be? It's likely that the restaurant still charged them for the full price of the plates that were removed from the belt, regardless of whether or not they ate everything that was on said plate. If they're otherwise quiet, respectful and paying customers, what about picking apart their food warrants kicking them out? As another user suggested, what happens if you don't eat the crust at a pizza joint? Edit: Since I'm getting a lot of similar replies here, I'll point out that OP has since clarified that the conveyor belt sushi joint that they went to, contrary to how they are usually run, did in fact charge a "flat fee" for access to the sushi train. Hence my confusion - this is a deviation from the norm. Edit 2: Kinda interesting watching the up/downvote progression in this thread. My initial post, despite being incorrect, was decently upvoted. Now that I've clarified that I was wrong and tried to correct myself, I'm getting downvoted. Neat!
- ender341341 3y agoit sounds like it was an all you can eat place, the few one I go to has signs up saying if you don't eat what you take you may be charged an extra plate (I've never seen them actually enforce it, I assume it's more for people who go make a giant bowl and then eat almost none of it).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paddy_m 3y agoThe profit calculator from NYMag was a great series of articles about the economics of business from investment banks, to drug dealers, to yoga studios. https://nymag.com/news/features/2007/profit/ https://nymag.com/news/features/2007/profit/
- jancsika 3y agoSounds like a category error, confusing the sadism of extracting oversized value from restaurateur with the deliciousness of food. At least, I've never had a hankering for a water and a half pound of tiny slivers of sashimi. The prank of taking the same amount of sushi and leaving it in a neat stack would be closer to enlightenment.
- schneems 3y agoI would love to know about the economics of theme parks. They require huge amounts of land, a massive upfront capital investment in the rides, and require a ton of logistics to coordinate the many workers required to run a place that often isn’t open year round (thinking Carowinds or six flags, not Disney). They also have to advertise continuously and serve an extremely elastic industry (people will cut theme park visits before cutting down on grocery store visits). Like when do operators decide to invest in a new ride and what’s the payback cycle like?
- alexhutcheson 3y agoThe Park Database has a great 3-park blog series on the business of theme parks. This is part I, the others are linked from there: http://www.theparkdb.com/blog/the-business-of-theme-parks-part-i-how-much-money-do-they-make/ http://www.theparkdb.com/blog/the-business-of-theme-parks-pa... They have a really interesting blog overall.
- schneems 3y agoThis is amazing. Thanks for the link! If someone else reads this comment please upvote this person.
- eru 3y ago> They also have to advertise continuously and serve an extremely elastic industry (people will cut theme park visits before cutting down on grocery store visits). Of course, elasticity goes in both directions. Demand that can be cut quickly, can also expand quickly. Toilet paper is almost the opposite. And the extremely inelastic (and thus stable) demand means that competition is sharp and everything needs to be hyperoptimized for your business to stand a chance. There's almost no slack in the system, because that would be a needless expense.
- sofixa 3y agoThere's also this video from Wendover Productions on that topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oESoI6XxZTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oESoI6XxZTg
- 3y ago
- rammer 3y agoThe closest thing I could think of was the economics of everyday things. https://freakonomics.com/series/everyday-things/ https://freakonomics.com/series/everyday-things/ Available as a podcast
- jorvi 3y agoI mean, they are perfectly within their right if that behavior is not explicitly disallowed. Over here, all-you-can-eat Asian shops generally operate on one of two principles (sometimes combined): 1. You can only order 5 things per person per 10 minutes 2. For every X amount of weight left over you pay a penalty