Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

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bread flour three quick questions

Four frameworks

peter 0

The Linlithgow committee provided four business snapshots based on live data (1923 figures..) to illustrate how the sector operated. There is no way of telling how much m, but the ones they published cast some light on the baking sector. Only theWar Office refused to share any data.  The most detailed is based on figures from the National Association of Master Bakers’ and a number of local associations. The Industrial Co-operative group gave a terse rendering of the Co-op’s pricing structure, which differs in smalll but significant ways from retail rivals. Third is a glimpse of the War Office bakery, in Aldershot. It went to extraordinary lengths to say nothing.  For the time being, I cannot locate where Butler Brothers traded, but the firm operated a number of branches from a central bakery.

Get ready to work in farthings for a while, since this small, fiddly coin was the lowest common denominator of the day.

The Master Bakers give a fairly thorough view of the additional inputs needed to make a batch of bread from a sack of flour, bearing in mind that it consolidates data supplied by 26 local firms and 63 local associations.

National Association of Master Bakers

All the figures that follow are the additional costs for a batch of bread. The dry ingredients added to the 20 stone sack of flour were valued at 161 farthings or 3s/4d and a farthing. Upstream expenses for converting the flour totalled 112d, that is 9s/4d, ignoring a stray halfpenny. Downstream expenses including distribution for the resultant bread was 11 shillings. Total cost to convert a sack of flour left change out of £2/4 shillings. Stables accounted for just over three shillings to the costs  of each batch, while depreciation on the capital for automotive vehicles was just a third of that.

Butler Bros.

datacrumb three quick questions

What is Driving Business Change?

peter 0

Forget the presentations, the bonding exercises, the sales pitches, executive bonuses, company cars and other corporate paraphenalia: it belongs in the past. Today we need to adjust to accelerating climate change, political instability, there simply isn’t time for the other stuff. People are waking up to the planet’s problems a couple of generations too late,

three quick questions

Who is driving the business?

peter 0

Census figures do not come close to providing any insight into the level or nature of economic activity in a given county or town. The productivity of 100 potters in Stoke on Trent during the 18th century could be considered substantial, but of a different quality to Josiah Wedgwood (in portrait). Few would argue that Wedgwood was a powerful agent of change on many fronts, yet this famous Unitarian went unrecorded in Anglican records of any kind.

Technology is a key to transforming productivity, but only in the hands of people with vision. Technical finesse will not redeem a boring or uninspired artefact, but serve to emphasise its lack of distinction.

Tony Wrigley has written this accessible account of how the treatment of census data is changing in today’s more broadly-based research world. The answers to life’s mysteries are no better than the questions we pose to define them.

fruit olives royal-commission three quick questions

What’s driving the business?

peter 0

Own label instant coffees are made with the same sort of coffee beans as their branded counterparts. The only difference is that the retailers control the pricing and, as retail brand owners, they are not held to ransom for shelf money. The Consumer Association magazine Which? is advising readers to switch to cheaper own label alternatives. To stand up its story, Which? gives the example of a 200g jar of Nescafé Original, which was selling for five and a half quid in supermarkets last year and is now the thick end of eight quid a pop on Ocado. Given the scale of Nescafé’s economies of scale in the procurement and manufacturing stages, how does one explain a 30% year on year price rise? Sure, the beans are more expensive, but what does the future hold for premium home delivery shopping channels?