At the moment everything’s here, just more expensive. As of today, the transportation strike has not yet affected supermarket supplies on Ibiza, as anyone who goes to the supermarkets to do their shopping can see. There are occasional shortages of sunflower oil and flour, and there is a lack of local fish, but what worries consumers is the price.
“With oil at this price we will have to cook on the grill,” says Inmaculada RodrÃguez, a resident of Ibiza. A phrase that explains an increasingly widespread feeling of anger in the face of an inflationary spiral that is directly hitting consumers’ pockets. A situation of which supermarkets are fully aware.
“The sunflower oil warehouses are in countries with which there is now no contact, so together with over-demand and speculation, and the fact that oil has been hoarded for three months, there is a distortion in the market”, explains Alfonso DÃaz, Operations Manager of Hipercentro: “The cost of transport has risen by 30% in one month, add to that the cost of electricity for the maintenance of the cold store… The situation pushes you to raise prices”.
“The cost of transport has risen by 30% in one month, add to that the cost of electricity for the maintenance of cold stores…. The situation pushes you to raise prices”.
“Suppliers are raising prices and this forces you to raise them too, because the commercial margins are small”, explains Antonio Moya, Manager of Eroski. “Everything in general is going up, the war is affecting suppliers, there is a lack of raw materials”, he adds.
This shortage of materials has direct consequences in the construction sector, but also in the food sector. One example is the case of tin cans: “There is no material to make cans, there is less aluminum and the price has gone up a lot ,” says Alfonso DÃaz. An absolutely distorted market situation that is difficult to fix: “There is less production and excess demand, which causes the price of the products to shoot up because the producers cater to whoever pays them the best. It’s similar to what happened with masks when the pandemic started.
The supermarket chains contacted by Diario de Ibiza assure that they have enough perishable goods in stock, and that fresh products are the most exposed to possible setbacks. Toni Prats, manager of the Suma de Sant Antoni and Cala de Bou, explains that, in his case, the goods arrive to them by boat from Catalonia and that they have not had any problem of supply of fresh produce. In his case, the problems have arisen due to the context of the raw materials market: “We have had short supply of canned food and flour, but only occasionally”.
Supermarkets with shortages in meat from Asturias
Alfonso DÃaz, operations manager of Hipercentro, explains that the strike affected him at first because “it has had a lot of flow on in Burgos and León, and interfered in the transport of the meat that comes to us from Asturias, but we have now solved the problem”. “It is not a total stoppage. There are areas where the stikes have been more active and have affected the entry of trucks in some industrial parks , but the percentage of those who have stopped is small,” he adds.
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