The distribution and sale of essential products returned to normal after the strike that ended on Thursday, June 30, however, some products will take a little longer to return to normal.
This is the case of milk, which despite overcoming the shortage that was evident in the days of the strike, its offer in supermarkets is not 100%, especially whole milk, which was verified in a tour of this newspaper by several establishments.
In the places visited there was product, but the hangers were not full as usual, but there were spaces, especially milk in a bag, whose price ranges between $0.85 and $0.89 per liter. Meanwhile, the racks with the other options: semi-skimmed and skimmed milk, were complete.
Another detail could be seen in the dates of production of the milks on display, all the unit cases or packages of six units, a presentation that some brands offer, were made during the stoppage, between June 13 and 30, but they were not They found products made from July 1 to date.
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And it is that during the national strike, and the road closures that it implied, the small and large milk producers could not get the product to the industrial plants. Normally they received about 2 million liters a day and during the protests they received barely 300,000 liters, in addition to the fact that some plants, although they had milk, lost the possibility of processing it due to lack of supplies, which they could not reach either, according to information from the Center for the Dairy Industry. guild that brings together the country’s dairy industry.
The dairy sector was one of the hardest hit during the stoppages, to the point of asking the Government to declare an emergency, since losses of at least one million liters per day were recorded, which meant some $500,000 per day in losses for the production sector. and for the industry twice that value ($ 1,000,000). In the days of the strike, the milk had to be discarded because, due to the closure of roads, it could not reach the industries to be processed and distributed. In addition, the farms did not receive important inputs for their proper functioning.
Juan Pablo Grijalva, general manager of the Association of Ranchers of the Sierra and Oriente (AGSO), recognized that there is a drop in milk production, among other reasons, because the animals need inputs such as minerals and others, which they must consume daily and that did not arrive during the strike, in addition to the death of animals because they could not get medicines to weather.
“Production and the sector were severely affected, but we are making an effort to regularize and normalize distribution. There were a few days of working at less than 30% of the installed capacity, and this obviously has consequences and complications that are difficult to remedy,” explained Grijalva.
Regarding shortages in establishments, he indicated that the logistics and supply chain have elements and edges that are delayed after such a strong stoppage. “There are bottlenecks in different spaces that generate delays and also always recompose and get up from a situation like the one experienced implies inaccuracies and lack of coordination,” said the leader. And he assured: “At the moment I could tell you that little by little we are approaching normality in distribution, always with delays and logistical complications typical of what we are experiencing, but in terms of distribution the situation is improving.”
Four million liters of milk are wasted per day due to the national strike, a damage that would border on $ 2 million per day
He added that the most severe complication lies in the flows and liquidity of ranchers. “A complex gap is going to be generated in this sense that we must look at how to correct,” he warned.
While, the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Bernardo Manzano, said on Tuesday that he would meet with the dairy sector of the Sierra to analyze the situation. “I have a meeting with the dairy farmers of Quito, fortunately with the opening of the roads and the logistics of collecting milk from small, medium and large producers has already begun to flow,” he said. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
