Bread is a Money Maker for Ritz Carlton Portman Shanghai

One of the perks of living in Shanghai instead of Kunming is that there are more Western Supermarkets. Naturally they are more expensive than the local one’s. Dutch cheese for instance is still not made in China.

I tend to go the City Supermarket that resides in the compound of the Portman Ritz Carlton Hotel. It’s nice, it has more choices of cereals than even Dutch supermarkets have (I actually just look at them to envision myself in a US Supermarket) and until today I even felt they were managed in a normal way.

Here comes the bread from the title. I never realized that the bakery in the supermarket is actually not part of the supermarket. I mean, until now I paid once at the checkout so why bother worrying about it.

Paying my things I checked the bill (A good Chinese custom) and was surprised the price of my ciabatta bread had increased 25%.

I felt there might be a mistake and asked the cashier. No, she was not responsible for the prices of the bakery, she also didn’t want to know. I should ask the girl from the bakery. The English speaking Manager told me the same.

“We just receive the money, the bakery girls
are part of Portman.”

So I strolled back to the bakery sections and asked why my ciabatta was now 15 Kuai instead of 12.

“The price changed”, she said.

When? “Today.”

So why where there price tags before with 12 kuai and no new price tags?

“The manager is still working on that.”

Which manager? The manager of the bakery section, the section which is not a part of the supermarket but nevertheless I still have to pay the supermarket.

I read about inflation in China but 25% seems a bit steep. Let’s hope the rest of the supermarket doesn’t become a part of the Shanghai Portman.

     
Posted Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 9:17 pm,
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