I think that an obvious trend from this week's assignment is that food products (fresh or not fresh) are more expensive at retail markets that appeal to wealthier consumers. Markets like Whole Foods, Zupan’s Market, First Alt Coop, and Farmers Markets obtain many of their foods from local growers who do not mass produce which can cause production costs to be high resulting in retail prices to mirror that. These stores also tend to be located in areas where wealth is prominent. Wholefoods and Zupan’s Market are well known in Lake Oswego which is a major wealthy town. It was easy to compare these observations to corporations like Safeway, Walmart, Fred Meyer’s which are also markets that are aimed to serve all levels of communities but mainly catch the eye of working class consumers. This is due to the fact that they carry mass amounts of items ensuring stock for a mass amount of people. This would mean that many of the products like proteins and vegetables come from mass producers which is known to keep production cost low creating low prices for consumers. You can find markets like these of many suburban areas but they tend to be the only grocery store within a 10-20 mile radius. This enables consumers nearby to stick with the cheapest and closest option to them. 

After some research, I found on the FDA website that many state within the U.S. have some type of regulation protocol to keep food standards met, I noticed one classmate report on the retail sale of bananas in Thailand and after some research I found that Thailand too has regulations in place for the safety and cleanliness of food. This is all under the “Food Act” which established rules and regulation for many attributes that go into selling, manufacturing and distributing food in Thailand.

Another observation I obtained after assessing the excel form is that many organic options for produce and products tend to be more expensive than items that are not USDA Organic certified. As we have learned in this class, there are certain standards that must be met in order to be certified to be Organic which can cause production costs to be higher. As production costs go up, so do consumer prices.