[Economics] 'One more week of stoppages will be catastrophic', warns the industry

[#Wittels-]

The president of the National Association of Food and Beverage Manufacturers assures that Ecuador is reaching "a very serious breaking point."

Products from the Sierra were sold directly to retailers in the Quinindé market

 

There is no milk supply. Can't transport, can't process. But at this point, the executive president of the National Association of Food and Beverage Manufacturers (Anfab), Christian Wahli, says that it is no longer a question of losses but of humanity, of food security. From the stores, from the food stalls, from the small producers, from the workers who seek to eat with two dollars and there is no food. They are collateral effects of the paralysis that, he says, hit the little ones, "just those who want to defend are the most affected." This association brings together 85 companies from various sectors that produce noodles, meat, milk, even candies.

 

What is the balance of the industry, how are they working?

arriving We are at a very serious breaking point, in which we have to think about the humanitarian and unite all of us. In Ecuador there is a large percentage, and therefore unemployment, of disadvantaged people who live from day to day and put them in this problem? I'm talking about food, but also about health care, medicines, sick people who can't pass in ambulances, very serious. And on the other hand, those who are behind, in the communes, where people are stopping the highways, those people lose every day. Every day we are not in trouble, there is no more milk supply. It cannot be transported because there is no way, and pasteurized products cannot be offered. The small producers who are around the milk and fruit collection centers lose, they lose everything. If it doesn't rot in the field, it will rot in transit. And there is no way to process them so that citizens have some of these products.

What alternatives do you see in the face of constant blockades and even without a political solution?

What we ask is that there be a willingness to dialogue, not trench, opening. We ask for the creation of humanitarian corridors, in a matrix we have identified possible convoys throughout the country from production centers to commerce, so that they allow our raw materials and finished products to pass through. We have sent to the Ministry of Industries, for security, they must be accompanied. In the pandemic we did the same. We had the humanitarian corridors and we were able to supply Guayaquil from the Sierra. I listened to the mayor (Cynthia Viteri) who wants to open the border with Peru. There is no bad intention of the serranos. There is already an informal business of pigs, rice, potatoes, contraband, imagine if it opens, and regulations must be respected. Instead of calling to open humanitarian corridors with Peru, help us make the people of the Sierra reflect and not seek confrontations between the Coast and the Sierra.

If milk can no longer be pasteurized, what problems will we have later, when the product is no longer available?

 

The milk that the people consume is pasteurized milk in a bag, that has a duration of 24 days and if they were produced at the beginning of the strike, half of the useful life of these products has already been eaten, and until it is on the hanger there will be almost nothing left. The consumer is going to take a product that is going to be close to its expiration date and for a pasteurized product that is critical. It is not so much a product in a cardboard container, that lasts six months. The problem again: the poor. The po[CENSORED]r product does not exist and you cannot afford a carton of milk.

This stoppage further aggravates the problems that already existed in the food industry due to the escalation of prices.

There are already very serious problems in the industry due to the international chaos since last year, bad cereal harvests. In the United States, in Europe, prices were rising and with the war they climbed. There are raw materials and inputs that are unattainable. A large factory had to shut down a production line for the first time in its history. You can't get (inputs) and if you do, it's at tremendously high prices. We talk about cardboard, packaging, inputs for agriculture, I don't know what the ranchers are going to do tomorrow when food for cattle is going to be missing, or climb to heaven, it's very serious. The chicken producers no longer have enough to feed them, they are going to die. In pigs it is the same. Where we go? I don't know, but let's make this effort to call for sanity, for humanity, for food safety.

 

What industry had to stop its production line here in Ecuador? Why?

From the meat sector. You need a whole series of supplies, starting with the sausage casings, the casings came from the east and there are no more, they generally come from the Ukraine. There is no longer, and if there are, they are at prices that are through the roof.

Countries are also not exporting to maintain their reserves.

exact The case of France that prohibited the export of its cereals. India the same, they have realized that they have to supply their po[CENSORED]tion first and they closed their exports. All this makes for a very complicated picture.

And how do you see the situation if the stoppages continue for another week?

It will be catastrophic. It is not a hypothesis, it is a serious thing and sit down to negotiate, it definitely becomes urgent.

The association had a plan for a cheap food basket, was it stopped at this time?

 

We are in that, it is not possible to say more because the situation is impossible. But we are aware that a very strong job will have to be done to offer more economic solutions. The consumer can no longer stand the climb that is not due to a lack of will on the part of the companies, but rather that the raw materials are expensive. Cardboard packaging needed by each factory climbed 170%, transportation 70%. The price of oil is criticized a lot, but we lose half of the production (due to pests). So the factories have to go look for their raw material and outside the price of oil is through the roof. There are restrictions, in Germany you cannot buy more than one bottle of sunflower oil per person. The same with the flour. Here we are going to get something similar. The situation is serious and unemployment has put the cherry on the cake. And I don't know how we're going to end the year. Hopefully we find solutions. (ME)

 

Link: https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/economia/paro-ecuador-una-semana-mas-de-paralizaciones-sera-catastrofico-alerta-industria-nota/?plantilla=home