Why does a small bag of roasted peanuts cost a dollar, when candied ones cost 80 cents?
Production and raw materials are nothing thanks to modern production technology. The real cost is in the shipping and storing. Raw or roasted peanuts will spoil, and so must be more hurriedly produced and sold. And if they are not sold, they are thrown away because the peanut oil will next go rancid and be useless. Sugar is a preservative: coat the peanut in sugar and it becomes what we like to call “nuclear war food.” That is, like Twinkies, after the nuclear war, that’s what you get off the market shelves because it hasn’t spoiled yet (like the frozen green beans over on aisle 23).
