The supermarket chain Mercadona has limited the purchase of potatoes for wrinkling to two kilograms per customer in its stores in Lanzarote.
In addition, in the signs located at the checkouts, it has informed its customers that "Mercadona does not sell wholesale." The objective of this action is to limit the purchase to avoid overcrowding and speculation with this product so used in Canarian cuisine.
As this company already did with toilet paper at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic or just a year ago with oil, now it is the turn of potatoes.
The potatoes consumed in Lanzarote are imported from the United Kingdom in summer, but the presence of a pest has forced a ban on their entry to the Archipelago. In this way, alarms have been raised in the Canary Islands due to the fear of suffering shortages or a rise in prices.
Faced with this situation, a manager of a restaurant group on the island reveals that for "a little over a week they have decided to acquire a little more quantity of potatoes." With this objective and in the face of the fear of a price increase, they have opted to fry batches of potatoes, vacuum pack them and freeze them. However, he assures that each hotelier will have "their formulas, depending on their recipes", but that it is a way of anticipating a greater increase in costs.
The same thing happens to Ricardo, a retired man from the island who meticulously looks at each supermarket to find the best prices, especially in oil and potatoes. Faced with this situation, he assures that it is "unsustainable over time" to maintain these prices. "There are opportunists who, when they see that something is in high demand and there is scarcity, push prices up," he concludes to La Voz.
