Summer demand rose from four to eight million kilograms a day. Reason for this: heat wave and higher costs.
Travelers to Spain may soon have to run out of sangria in restaurants and bars. Ice cubes are essential to what is probably Spain’s most popular summer drink – and they’re becoming scarce across the country. Rising demand due to heat waves and rising prices for production, storage and transport have led to an increasingly severe ice cube shortage. “There is a shortage of ice cubes throughout the country,” wrote the newspaper “El Mundo”.
Who knows the situation very well is businessman Miguel Ángel Vázquez Gavira, called “Rey del Cubito”, “King of the Ice Cube” in Spain, because his company has a share of over 20 percent in the national market and is also active in other European countries. In an interview with “El Mundo” (Sunday edition), he says: “Every day I get calls from businessmen who cry begging me for ice cream.” He never experienced it. “And the worst is yet to come. The next few weeks will be dramatic,” warns the 56-year-old.
rationed ice cubes
In supermarkets in Madrid and Barcelona, in Mallorca and Ibiza, ice cube freezer compartments are now almost always empty. Delivery companies and large supermarket chains like Mercadona have been rationing ice cream for days. Many companies only provide regular customers. “If we had to sell to everyone, the ice would last an hour,” said Mateo Obrador, a partner at distributor JOP, according to the newspaper “Diario de Mallorca”.
According to industry information, demand in the summer rose from four to eight million kilograms a day. Only two million would be produced every day. In winter, because of high electricity prices, there was practically no production, unlike usual. Ice cream prices have already increased sixfold in some cases.
As is so often the case, one person’s suffering is another person’s joy: the winners of the crisis are the bars that have their own ice cream machines. “We haven’t noticed any shortages,” commented a cocktail waiter at the popular “Nicolás” bar in Mallorca’s capital, Palma. The situation at the neighboring bar “Lili’s” is completely different: orders that used to arrive “within two hours” were now delayed by “up to 48 hours”, owner Lili Zolatorova told “Diario de Mallorca”. Ice cream usually comes just before the end of the day.
(APA/dpa)