Spain

Sharp increase in electricity bill for Spanish butchers

Butchery

94% of the butchershops in Spain have seen an unexpected increase in costs.

Posted on Sep 08 ,07:13

The Spanish Confederation of Meat Retailers (Cedecarne) has carried out a digital survey to its associates, to find out how changes in the electricity bill have affected their companies. For the last three months, up to 94% of Spanish butchers and delicatessens have undergone a considerable increase, which particularly affects the sector, since these businesses need to have many facilities and machinery that require energy consumption, and in some cases, they need to be activated constantly, while in other cases their use is concentrated during business hours for 66.7% of those surveyed.
Butchershops are forced to use cold rooms, cold counters, slicers, packers, mincers and cooking ovens, among other pieces of machinery, in order to operate correctly and to be competitive.
This justifies that 44.8% of those surveyed have seen their electricity bill increase between 10 and 30%; as well as the rise of between 30 and 50% assured by 37.3% of butchers-butchers. Even 17.9% of professionals say they have exceeded a 50% increase in their last invoices.

From Cedecarne, concerned about these figures, they request that measures be taken to solve the particular situation of this sector, made up of 25,000 companies, mostly SMEs and freelancers, as they assure that, in addition, many of these butcher shops-delicatessens have been undertaking for years, with a great economic effort, an endless number of measures to improve its energy efficiency and to be more sustainable every day. However, they feel helpless in the face of this latest increase in the electricity bill and some of their professionals are afraid of not being able to face more expenses, even having to close their businesses, which employ more than 58,000 professionals in the country.