The Canary Islands remain oblivious to the lack of ice that the restaurant and food sectors are facing on the Peninsula. So much so that tons of this product depart daily from the Archipelago to fill the chests of various supermarkets. Far from blaming all the problems on the heat, the pandemic and the increase in costs, with energy in the lead, the island producers warn that the ice is the victim of problems that have been dragging on for decades. “We sold the bag for 150 pesetas 30 years ago and today, at 85 cents”, details the manager of the Canarian company Arucansa, Francisco Suárez.
This almost perpetual price suppression causes a “non-existence of profits”. From it derives a process of concentration to try to generate economies of scale that guarantee survival above the profitability threshold. Arucansa itself is an example of this. In the last twelve years, seven small businesses have joined this project led by Pedro García.
Living on the financial edge, plus the “300%” increase in energy costs, It is what, in Suárez’s opinion, has left several companies on the Peninsula the only option to “lower the lever”. The absence of margins has prevented them from healing the wounds inflicted by the sanitary restrictions that the pandemic forced to decree in key ice businesses such as the Horeca channel (hotels, restaurants and cafeterias). Now only the giants, those who accumulate more muscle in their balances, have a guaranteed future.
Producers maintain that supply is declining due to low prices
Last June was the fourth warmest since 1961 in mainland Spain, according to the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet). The early heat wave has already put ice claimants on notice. However, the winds more typical of spring returned and the waters returned to calm. It has been now, with summer fully installed and with very high temperatures for weeks, when the iceberg, worth the frozen simile, has revealed its full dimension.
The restaurateurs are making real balances, but the ice is not a terrain that gives guarantees not to slip, on the contrary. From exporting it to France or Italy, it has gone to the fact that the drinks have fewer cubes in some bars. This is something that does not go unnoticed by a large part of the heated and thirsty clientele. And the worst thing is that these shortcomings threaten to become more pronounced if the dog days continue.
The Canary Islands are not exempt from the problems caused by the very prolonged captivity of prices. The matter would be settled if they rise to suppose an increase of “between five and ten cents” for the final client, assures the manager of Arucansa. “I don’t see anyone suspending a barbecue because the ice costs a little more”, judgment. However, consumption is not affected by seasonality as is the case on the Peninsula, where production skyrockets in the summer months.
Arucansa has started a new manufacturer this week in Tenerife
and there goes the apparent contradiction that it is one of the autonomous communities with the lowest rainfall rate the one that supplies –in a small part– to the rest of the State. “60% of sales go to small local distributors, who are the ones who put the ice in the bars, and the remaining 40% goes to food”, explains Suárez. And his main client, Mercadona to be exact, asked about the possibility of Arucansa contributing to cover some gaps that were becoming empty in the frozen containers of its supermarkets.
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Arucansa had planned to start a new ice maker –as it is called in jargon– in Tenerife between October and the end of the year. It would join the three that are operating 24/7. The investment has been advanced. Production has gone from 80 tons to 150 tons a day overnight.
Suarez knows that Exporting to the Peninsula is a circumstantial issue and that the really important thing is to solve the problem. “At least this crisis is going to serve to make the bottom of the matter visible and understand that we cannot have prices from the 1990s,” he concludes.
15,000 bags per day
The entry into operation this week of the first ice maker in Tenerife has allowed Arucansa to send 40 tons of ice to the Peninsula every day or, what is the same, “about 15,000 bags”, according to the manager of the Gran Canarian company, Francis Suarez. Currently, “between 30% and 40%”, he adds, of the production goes into freezers that go to mainland Spain by sea. An injection of income that will serve to “pay off a little, no more.” Transport increases costs, so the operation can only be understood as a detail with the final customer by supermarkets. | J. G. H.