>>312051In Australia the high regulatory and labor costs means business needs these insane profit margins.
As a result consumers loose access to primary products and products with a low markup.
Coles sells parsley for $3 a bunch when parsley is basically a weed- they can't turn a profit otherwise.
Mcdonalds sells sugar 20c/kg mixed with water 2c/kg and syrup (???) for 6$/kg.
They might be getting 2000% profit on it- that's insane.
They are literally taking water and charging people 2000% what it's worth.
The downside is that it's a low value product- so they need to sell huge volumes of it; thus a drink is included in every meal and typically 500g or more.
This means the average Australian consumes hundreds of times more sugar than they should a day, just because Mcdonalds can only make a profit if people consume bulk sugar-water, and sugar water is the only thing they can make a profit on.
If Mcdonalds sold beans, people could only consume 700G or so before being completely full- because that's what beans are good for.
They wouldn't be able to sell the quantities they needed to make a profit, and even selling beans their markup wouldn't be enough.
Big-think here:
What if a single person was to sell bean soup with a kitchen that was just a charcoal stove, a chopping board/lid of the pot, and four bricks?
Because of needing so little space, labor and one staff member it's entirely concievable that an individual could make a living- and the whole community could have access to wholesome $1 bean soup and bread.
The answer is that Mcdonalds would reach new levels of Kvetch, and so these chains lobby every year to stop people setting up small independent food stalls.
How this is done it typically arbitrary license costs and local government laws.
A one by one meter bean stall pays the same license as a 50m square restaurant; and fifty stalls next to each other would pay fifty times as much.
By design, this kills all micro-business, street food, markets and pajeet tier business.
Pajeet was right about beans