buzzbishop.com - Latest Comments in Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

DrStoooopid — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:41:55 -0000

Anyone that buys a square watermelon is an idiot.

You can grow them yourself, just grow the melon in a square plexiglass container.

They've been doing this since the early 80's.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Ryan Cousineau — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:35:19 -0000

Phil: short version? You're probably wrong. Your belief that a shipment of melons couldn't fit in a refrigerated container with a full container's worth of other perishable stuff is the most charmingly naive view of how shipping works that I've read this week.

Long version? A consumer can swamp the logistical "carbon footprint" of this melon with their method of getting the melon home, assuming certain fairly plausible parameters for how they get to the store and how far they traveled.

Slate recycles the analysis of how stuff gets moved, this time in a discussion of Netflix DVDs.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

MJ Ankenman — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:09:21 -0000

I was at Urban Fare the other day and while I thought the square watermelon was fun and worth a second look, I blinked several times when I saw the price tag. Come On!! I think the reason they are sending them to promotion departments is because nobody is buying them. Who would? By the way they have one that is cut in half and the inside is yellow not watermelon red and it looks very pulpy. Smart of Phil to sell it on eBay. At least diamond shreddies are the same price as regular shreddies.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Mina — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:46:55 -0000

Diamond shreddies are hilarious

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Phil Evans — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:08:49 -0000

Re: Ryan Cousineau and "Big Carbon Footprint?"

There were apparently only 400 available for North America, so it hardly seems like they're saving the shipping costs eh? Did they put 'em in containers alongside Mazda's?

Plus they had to be shipped from the square watermelon factory in Japan to the ship - and then taken off and shipped to the stores in North America.

That seems like larger carbon footprint than a truckload from Chilliwack. Thank God for little pleasures like Fiji Spring Water.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Rebecca — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:35:45 -0000

No, a vanity watermelon is NOT needed to impress our friends..

I impress my friends with my BMW, my Manolo Blahniks, my Prada bag, and 2 Karat Diamond engagement ring.

All waste of money in my opinion...

So, if people are impressed with this crap they adorn themselves with...why WOULDN'T they be impressed with this.

Some...people...are...idiots. Lets face it.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Ryan Cousineau — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:31:32 -0000

Big carbon footprint? If they're ship-shipped (which appears to be standard for all but the most delicate fresh produce) the carbon footprint per watermelon may be more for the trip from the warehouse in Richmond to the store than it is from Japan to Vancouver.

The secret is volume: the biggest container ships carry 7000 containers at a time, and note that a standard (2 TEU) container is 40'x8'x8'. So one container can carry, hm, let's pretend it's 1 cubic foot, because that's close and convenient.

So roughly 2400 watermelons will fit in a container, which is something like 1/7000 of the container ship's cargo capacity.

That ship would use about 350 metric tons of diesel fuel per day, and take about 15 days to make the Japan-Canada trip.

yadda yadda, the melon on Phil's desk consumed about 0.3 kg of diesel fuel on its trip from japan, which is about 0.35 litres of gas. How fuel-efficient is the car you drove to the grocery store, or to work for that matter?

Lessons to be learned: math is hard, but vital. Ships are more fuel-efficient than cars. Do not be deceived by your visceral sentiments.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Karen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:41:50 -0000

I agree with you about the ridiculousness of importing these fruit, Buzz. It screams novelty and big carbon footprint to me. I'm disappointed that Urban Fare bought into the hype.

Even if North American consumers and businesses *needed* square watermelons (let's say for reasons similar to the space constraints in Japan as Rebecca's link reports), it makes more sense to have local growers adopt the necessary methodologies to shape them like that in North America.

Personally, I wouldn't shell out $100 on shoes, let alone an angular watermelon.

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

buzzbishop — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:03:36 -0000

@rebecca

while i appreciate the creativity at conserving shelf space in japan, i just dont see the rationale behind shipping a $100 vanity watermelon across the ocean to vancouver.

it's a watermelon! do we really need a square watermelon to demonstrate our hip superiority to our friends?

i mean, if they're so cool, why can't we just grow them like that here?

Re: Do Urban Fare’s Square Watermelons Taste Better?

Rebecca — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:04:53 -0000

Here's another way to look at it..

http://www.financialhack.co...