2023-09-24 10:38:52
Filling the refrigerator is increasingly more expensive, a reality that puts pressure on the entire food chain and lengthens over time, since the brake on inflation has not yet come due to the drought and the war in Ukraine, warns the general director of the employer of the food industry, Mauricio García de Quevedo.
The Federation of Food and Beverage Industries (FIAB) expects a 2024 of “more normality” and that the extraordinary situation experienced by some products such as extra virgin olive oil will not be transferred to other products, according to García de Quevedo. in an interview with Efe.
And he calls for a Government to work for the competitiveness of companies and take measures to tackle this problem and not others that have been pointed out in the last year – such as the price cap – that could lead to “disaster.”
Question (P): After a first half of constant price increases, what prospects do you have for the end of the year?
Answer (R): THE second semester is also full of unknowns. We expected a slowdown in inflation that did not come due to the drought and the war situation in Ukraine, the effect of which has worsened again with the end of the Black Sea agreement and the Danas.
All this has displaced part of the harvests and has transferred the expectations we had of slowdown; We expect a second semester, again, with very tight margins for the food industry.
Q: The rise in the price of extra virgin olive oil is one of the concerns of Spaniards and is in the media spotlight. Could something similar happen in other productions?
A: If everything continues as it should, I don’t see any other product category suffering from this tension. We hope that the situation will relax and that by 2024 everything will be more normal.
Q: Upon the return of this especially hot and dry summer, the FIAB warned of the impact of the drought on food production. What can this increasingly structural lack of water lead to?
The supply of food products is guaranteed, but the problem is that the agri-food value chain suffers because primary production does so as a result of the drought, since neither the quantity nor the quality required in many cases to be able to have the products is achieved. that we normally have. We will have to resort to imports or other types of issues. At this point, we consider a National Hydrological Plan essential, a much more efficient use of water and infrastructure.
Q: The food industrial fabric has a very peculiar structure. How is its performance in this very complex scenario?
A: The pressure on industry margins does not always translate to the final sales price. We have many small and medium-sized businesses and they are the ones that suffer the most. Last year, 150 closed, which were not able to absorb this inflationary situation and, this year, it will be a similar number. All product categories behave more or less similarly, therefore it is the size of the company that makes it vulnerable.
Q: All this in the economic field, but we must add the political situation in Spain.
A: The political situation only adds more uncertainty to the equation, since there is a lack of a Government to be able to take corrective measures and help in this process.
Q: What effect would it have if this situation were delayed?
A: The truth is that we are very worried. We need a government that is committed to competitiveness. We must immediately implement some fiscal measures and we have the plastic tax, which was a big mistake. There is also the Perte Agroalimentario that has just failed the first call. We hope a second one is more flexible and, in principle, they were up for the job.
Q: VAT was lowered but part of the current Government does not seem to have forgotten measures such as limits on shopping baskets and have even launched ideas such as public supermarkets. What opinion do they deserve?
A: The party that has proposed these types of measures is the minority party within the government now in office. We know that the majority party has not considered them. We don’t believe they will happen, because it would be a disaster. In the countries where they have been implemented, the effect has been absolutely the opposite.
Q: The Spanish food industry has experienced a success story in foreign markets. Are you at risk due to the situation of uncertainty and inflation?
A. We continue to have a very relevant export capacity. In 2022 we saw, however, something that had not happened for a long time, which was the drop in sales volume as a result of the global context. We think that it is something temporary and that it will not affect the good path of our exports. We continue to open markets and continue to have a strong position, selling 35% of production abroad. This path will continue.
Even so, we have two new clouds to solve: the United States tariffs – which remain suspended – and Brexit, which is a real administrative complexity.
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