Food Price Comparisons: U.S.A vs. Philippines

I thought it might be interesting to make a comparison between the USA and Philippines on some basic food items many of us eat on a regular basis. For some reason I always thought the Philippines was more expensive for most of the food items sold there. The reality is that the Philippines is actually cheaper for many and probably most food products people buy such as local chicken, fish and fresh fruits. However, in my case, the products I like are mostly imported and turn out to be higher priced, thus my interpretation of prices being higher overall for most of my 8 years living here. Just one example is a pint of Haagen Dazs Ice Cream being almost $10.00 in the Philippines and that is more than double the price in the States. The bottom line is to stay away from the imported items that require refrigeration and you will save considerably.

For the study, I have made the conversion already from Pounds to Kilograms and from Dollars to Philippine Pesos using a 42:1 conversion rate (today's official rate). I tried to enter in as many of the Philippine prices as I could from mine and Lynn's memory and will fill in the rest when we get back in October .

I do want to make it clear and it is a very important point is the fact that many of the food products sold in in the Philippines mostly are not anywear near the quality of their USA counterparts. This is especially true in the vegetable area. HOWEVER, this is now changing especially in the bigger cities with the numerous Weekend Farmers Markets popping up and more suppliers of many other things are starting to show their face as well all to our benefit.  One great example of something that has been horrible in the Philippines has been with the quality of Beef. For six of the past eight years I have lived in the Country I have not gone near the beef. Now I can as a couple of years ago I found a company that raises Japanese Beef and it is awesome (Ground Beef and Steaks) and better yet, they are opening branches in the bigger cities as well. The bottom line is you can find the things you are looking for but just have to pay a bit more for them. But now that I think about it, even the Organic Farmers Market stuff is cheaper in the Philippines than in the States.

Another thing is these prices can vary with sales/specials and different regions of either Country the products are being sold so the prices are obviously not cast in stone