20 October 2010

Pumpkin Rip Off?

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pumpkins [Canberra Pumpkins]

We all must have too much money, Woolies at Kippax selling pumpkins for Halloween for $24.

Up in Brisbane, the price was $20 (picture below).

Maybe this should be titled “The Canberra Rip Off”?

[ED – or is this fair enough for a very large out of season fruit?]

Brisbane pumpkins
[Brisbane Pumpkins]

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Modern (with Candy and Costumes) Trick or Treating in Australia actually pre-dates records of it appearing in the United States. UMAD Halloween haters?

Halloween of course though comes from Britain/Ireland though and while I can’t specifically remember how they celebrate it, you can see how Trick or Treating evolved from their customs and celebrations.

Woody Mann-Caruso2:13 pm 21 Oct 10

$4 a kilo for transport is very high.

It’s not $4 a kilo. It’s $4 for an entire pumpkin that weighs 5 kg.

Coles has them for $3.99 / kg – still looking at $20 for a decent sized one.

Also they are grown in North Australia, but still $4 a kilo for transport is very high.

I can tell you that I was at Flemington Markets this morning and the whole sale price was about $4/kg that works out at between $20 and $26 each. These pumpkins are not grown on big farms and there is no economy of scale. The Farmer’s that have gone to the trouble of having perfect Halloween Pumpkins at this time of year can charge a premium. At least the farmer is getting a fair slice of the money.

you can get Certified organic Kent or Butternut Pumpkin cheaper at this time of year.

We have a few in stock but basically I think they are a rip off and I would not suggest anyone should buy one.

To revisit my earlier comment about Hallowe’en (grammar) and its ACTUAL origins, people!!! I’d like to suggest that the Americans have actually outdone us on preservation of their cultural history, although they have dumbed it down a tad by making it a game for the children. According to Wikipedia, it was the adults who used to dress up as spirits.

Since Australians have extinguished observation of the ritual altogether, let’s resume our place in the grand guignol tradition by getting adults to dress up and start running around demanding lollies from children.

Captain RAAF said :

Some very good vantage points near my house, but this year, I’ll be answering the door to any little trick or treaters in my ghoul costume and plan to frighten seven shades of crap out of them…..then give them lollies and wink at thier mums!

A grown man, concealed and in disguise, stalking children, and handing out boiled sveeties. That couldn’t possibly be misinterpreted.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Ah, ‘Americanism’. The same limited, sound-byte thinking from the people who brought you ‘un-Australian’.

While you’re bleating about ‘Americanisms’, be sure to continue to enjoy your American music, American television, American movies, American fast food, American cars, American fashions…and keep on spelling ‘jail’ with a ‘g’ and an ‘o’, that really shows your intellectual fibre.

Was that last bit sarcasm? Cos if it was, I’m confused; “gaol” IS the Australian way of spelling it.

Woody Mann-Caruso9:54 am 21 Oct 10

Ah, ‘Americanism’. The same limited, sound-byte thinking from the people who brought you ‘un-Australian’.

While you’re bleating about ‘Americanisms’, be sure to continue to enjoy your American music, American television, American movies, American fast food, American cars, American fashions…and keep on spelling ‘jail’ with a ‘g’ and an ‘o’, that really shows your intellectual fibre.

Captain RAAF said :

[

this year, I’ll be answering the door to any little trick or treaters in my ghoul costume and plan to frighten seven shades of crap out of them

Got the uniform freshly pressed then?

My wife has a pack of seeds for those pumpkins. They appear to be a New England Pie pumpkin. Good for carving and it stores well according to the packet.

I’ve got no interest in Halloween, but really don’t care if anyone else wants to celebrate it.

I saw these pumpkins down at Woolies the other day and wondered if the flesh of this particular type of pumpkin any good for eating or is it just thrown away after you carve the shell?

lobster said :

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

I see the danger in allowing corporations to invent another useless retailing holiday. In another generation it will be socially unacceptable not to participate. Then you will be pressured into buying useless trinkets and sweets for snot-nosed beggars who interrupt your evening. And should you choose not to participate, the sugar-addicted teenagers will retaliate by egging and toilet-papering your house; that’s what happens in the USA to “kill-joys” who don’t see the “fun” in gifting $100s worth of treats to their neighbours kids every year.

We’ve already got Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentines, Easter, New Year, Christmas, and apparently even Thanksgiving is gaining traction (why?), so we damn well don’t need Halloween as well. Can’t we just celebrate these holidays without being pressured into spending money on useless retail crap?

American or British is probably less important than the supermarkets’ need to make money between father’s day and Christmas

Waiting For Godot said :

I suppose after the unsold Halloween pumpkins are taken off to land fill they’ll be replaced with Thanksgiving Day turkeys.

Or perhaps to replace the Canadian expats’ Thanksgiving turkeys?

The prices of those pumpkins have been going up the whole month of October….I have a feeling they’re going to peak right around January….

Waiting For Godot5:46 pm 20 Oct 10

I suppose after the unsold Halloween pumpkins are taken off to land fill they’ll be replaced with Thanksgiving Day turkeys.

lobster said :

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it. The same hatred isn’t served out to people who celebrate Oktoberfest or Christmas in July.
Why the hate for Halloween?
If you are a kid – you get lollies
If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky
If you are a young adult male – you get to look at girls dressed up in very little clothing.

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

And it gives crotchety old men the chance to instill the delights of bitter licorice on unsuspecting brats

Those aren’t any old pumpkins, though. The varieties most common in this part of the world are the Jap, Kent and Queensland Blue, none of which are orange, and most of which can be had whole for less than five dollars.

But since popular Halloween culture depicts pumpkins as orange fruits, though, it makes sense for retailers to sell these weird orange ones for inflated prices to any schmuck who thinks that is the proper colour for a Halloween pumpkin. Since they’re not likely to be used as food, they’re purely a luxury item, and IMHO they should attract GST too, because we all have the right to profit from wealthy ignoramuses’ largesse!

lobster, the latter two points you make can be observed in the City from Thursday through Saturday nights all year.

Captain RAAF4:24 pm 20 Oct 10

lobster said :

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it.

If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky

I like it when the skanky mums also dress up to escort the little kiddies around from house to house to make sure no whacko perverts try and fiddle with them. Some very good vantage points near my house, but this year, I’ll be answering the door to any little trick or treaters in my ghoul costume and plan to frighten seven shades of crap out of them…..then give them lollies and wink at thier mums!

“I’m so cool. I pay out Halloween every chance I get because it makes me feel better than Americans!”

I really don’t see a problem with it. The same hatred isn’t served out to people who celebrate Oktoberfest or Christmas in July.
Why the hate for Halloween?
If you are a kid – you get lollies
If you are a young adult female – you get to dress skanky
If you are a young adult male – you get to look at girls dressed up in very little clothing.

I have never actually celebrated halloween. But I see no drama in letting people do it.

irrespective of its cultural roots – it is certainly marketed as being american as apple pie [and one wonders where apples were first so baked (perhaps and probably even pre-chaucer, whence hail recipes) – the real crux of the matter is that it is a seasonal celebration, which if we were to observe it we’d be doing so in april…

Wow an extra $4, easily attributed to transport costs. I’m sure if you went to other state capitals you would also see a price difference.

If you’re stupid enough to partake in the american tradition, expect to be effected by the law of supply and demand, where prices rise because of the demand from the few idiots in this country.

Halloween’s been round longer than America has.

And it’s not like there’s a market the rest of the year for the things – why shouldn’t they (being anyone who wants to grow, import or sell them) charge what they can get for them? They’re hardly one of life’s necessity’s, venerability of occasion notwithstanding.

Why not grow them yourself if the cost of buying them frets you so? If they’re anything like chokos you’ll be kneedeep in them next year if you chuck this year’s remnants on a compost heap

🙂

Muttsybignuts3:00 pm 20 Oct 10

shirty_bear said :

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

There must be some degree of success. Halloween shit has been increasing for quite a while now. Every year the floorspace devoted to Halloween gets bigger and bigger in the shops.

trickyxr said :

Halloween is a rip off all together. American tradition not a Australian tradition Just another way to reep the cash.

Unfortunately for us, this isn’t the case. Halloween relates to All Hallow’s Day (whatever that is), and comes from the British Isles somewhere. Even dressing up and Trick or Treat has non-American roots. Ever ethically chained to truth in emotional abuse, I was crushed at having to surrender the opportunity to sneer witheringly at all those excited little upturned and amusingly masked faces while I smugly derided them all as brainwashed running dog paper tiger lackeys of Uncle Sam’s cultural imperialst war machine….

Clown Killer2:33 pm 20 Oct 10

My understanding is that whilst a lot of the trappings of the contemporary and largely secular Halloween thing draw on the north American experience, as far as ‘tradition’ goes it’s actually an ancient British festival. It’s the Celtic new year (or somthing similar) and corresponds with All Hallows Eve the divide between the longer summer days and shorther days of the winter months (in the northern hemisphere).

Pptvb – nice profits for the retailer, I wonder how far up the supply chain that money goes?

colourful sydney racing identity2:18 pm 20 Oct 10

shirty_bear said :

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

This

Rule One: Do not buy vegetables at a supermarket.

Rule Two: Out of season produce will be sold for a premium

Up in Brisbane, the price was $20.

Well, they didn’t walk down here by themselves did they – though if they were real Jack’o’lanterns then they could have.

Rawhide Kid Part32:12 pm 20 Oct 10

Hallo Who ???

pptvb said :

$24 = nice profits all along the supply chain.

But these are not your regular garden variety pumpkins – they’re proper Halloween Pumpkins. I’d suggest that the large American contingent here in Canberra explains the price difference.

Honestly, if you’re dumb enough to be suckered into yet another imported commercialised festive event, you deserve to pay through the nose.

Oh my god, that’s a 20% price increase. I demand a royal commission!

Maybe this should be titled “What’s this bollocks doing here at all?”

Anyone so keen to buy into this overt Americanism deserves to get ripped off. The retail sector has been pushing Halloween for a while now, with seemingly little success. Hopefully it stays that way.

Halloween, WASSAT?????

Halloween is a rip off all together. American tradition not a Australian tradition Just another way to reep the cash.

A friend of mine was telling me a few years ago about how hard a job it is harvesting pumpkins. On their farm, near Gooloogong, it was all done by hand.
Back-breaking work when they were only getting $0.03 per kilo!
$24 = nice profits all along the supply chain.

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