Prices of local produce

[hawkeye_a]

A general observation, a bit of a rant and some questions....

Australia has a significant beef, lamb, sea-food and wine industry. In the mid-2000s I started noticing the prices of these item begin to increase pretty rapidly. Having traveled, I started noticing prices of Australian wines, beef and lamb in foreign countries to be lower than the prices in Australia. I can't understand how that is even possible.

In the US, local produce(meat & veggies) seems to be extremely cheap, which makes sense to me.

Does anyone have any theories as to why/how a locally produced item would be cheaper in foreign countries?

Side Topic: Pontiacs used to be manufactured in Australia, and they used to be exported and sold in the US for cheaper than in Australia!!! (They aren't manufactured in Australia anymore).

 

[Mousse]

Not only are they cheaper, they're better quality too. The cheap produce will go bad before they reach foreign markets so they have to ship the best quality produce. The lower quality--more likely to go bad first--stuff gets sold locally. This only applies to produce and other perishable foods.

The reason they're sold cheaper to foreign market is because there would be too much supply available locally otherwise. Supply/demand and all that. In the foreign market, they're competing against others (China) with similar products. Again, supply and demand.