As Mexicans prepare to sweat through the third heat wave of the year, the ubiquitous Oxxo convenience store chain began limiting sales of bags of ice.
Over the weekend, Oxxo — with more than 20,000 stores in Mexico — announced it was limiting customers in Mexico City to three bags of ice per person due to increased demand.
The decision came after a significant rise in social media complaints about the lack of ice and other items such as beer and soft drinks at Oxxo stores.
“[The policy] aims to allow a greater number of people the opportunity to buy [bags of ice],” Oxxo’s parent company Femsa said while acknowledging that the policy might be applied in other cities across the nation.
Shops and distributors in several cities had to turn away customers looking for ice this past weekend as supplies ran out.
The México-state newspaper El Sol de Toluca reported that a long line of delivery trucks idling outside one local ice distributor at 7 a.m. on Saturday were eventually told no ice would be available. An employee of the distributorship said customers were traveling to Toluca from Mexico City, which is 64 kilometers away.
The National Meteorological Service (SMN) announced that, beginning Monday, temperatures above 40 C will accompany the latest heat wave.
Mexico City’s water scarcity issue also complicated the situation thanks to rising demand for flavored waters and iced beverages, the newspaper La Jornada reported. Over the weekend, some cafés and restaurants had to repeatedly send employees on lengthy searches for ice.
With reports from Milenio, El Sol de Toluca, López-Dóriga Digital and La Jornada
