职称英语综合备考：概括大意中英文对照（5）

How Technology Pushes Down Price
技术如何促使价格下降

　　1　 Prices have fallen in the food business because of advances in food production and distribution technology. Consumers have benefited greatly from those advances. People who predicted that the world would run out of food were wrong. We are producing more and more food with less and less capital. Food is therefore more plentiful and cheaper than it has ever been. Spending on food compared with other goods has fallen for many years, and continues to drop.
　　由于食品生产和分销技术的进步，食品价格已经下降。消费者从中获益很大。那些预测食品会用光的人是错误的。我们正在用较少的成本生产更多的食物。食品因此也从来没有如此丰饶和低廉。和其他的商品比，花在食品上的钱多年来一直下降，并将持续下降。

　　2　 Supermarkets have helped push down prices mainly because of their scale. Like any big business, they can invest in IT systems that make them efficient. And their size allows them to buy in bulk. As supermarkets get bigger, the prices get lower.
　　超市由于其规模促使价格下降。像其他的商业，他们利用了IT技术使其高效，其规模允许可以大批量购买。随着超市的变大，价格也变的越低。

　　3 　Huge retail companies such as Wal-Mart have tremendous power and they can put pressure on producers to cut their margins. As a result, some producers have had to make cuts. In recent years, Unilever has cut its workforce by 33, 000 to 245, 000 and dropped lots of its minor brands as part of its “path to growth” strategy. Cadbury has shut nearly 20 percent of its 133 factories and cut 10 percent of its 55, 000 global workforce. These cuts help keep costs down, and the price of food stays low.
　　大零售商像沃尔玛凭借强大的力量，他们给生产商施加压力消减利润。因此，生产商不得不降价。近几年，联合利华已经裁员从33000到245000人。为了战略发展还砍掉了很多小名牌。Cadbury关闭了 的加工厂。全球员工55000,裁员的.

　　4 　Does cheap food make people unhealthy? Cheap food may encourage people to eat more. Good companies certainly think that giving people more food for their money makes them buy more. Giving people bigger portions is an easy way of making them feel they have got a better deal. That is why portions have got larger and larger. In America, soft drinks came in 8oz (225g) cans in the past, then 12oz (350g), and now come in 20oz (550g) cans. If a company can sell you an 8oz portion for $7, they can sell you a 12oz portion for $ 8. The only extra cost to the company is the food, which probably costs 25 cents.
　　便宜的食品不健康吗？便宜食品鼓励人们吃的更多。好的公司认为给顾客更多的食品可以使其买的多。份量大可以让顾客感觉得了便宜，这就是为什么分量越来越大的原因。在美国，软饮料过去是225克装，然后是350克装，现在是550克。如果225克装的买7美元，他们就会把350克装的定价为8美元。对于公司来说，成本只是多25美分。

　　5 　Now companies are under pressure to stop selling bigger portions for less money. But it is hard to change the trend.
　　现在公司不得不以价换量，这种趋势很难改变。