What is the free tapas inflation risk?
Can tapas survive inflation? These are the bar recipes to keep a free dish alive in times of rising prices.
On summer nights, the terraces of Madrid are overflowing, the beers follow one after another and, in some other bar, also the tapas.
“Here you order a couple of reeds and you've already had dinner, and seeing how expensive everything is, it's not a little,” says a customer at the bar of La pequeña Graná.
Lifelong neighbors, university students and tourists coincide in this bar in the Madrid neighborhood of Delicias, which for 1.7 euros offers reeds accompanied by a free tapa to choose from 20 options.
Free tapas inflation risk
Simón, the manager, serves his bestseller to the client: a fried cheese with honey, and begins to peel each ingredient: "cheese and honey have risen by 15% and 35%, each; bread and egg, to batter, by 10% and 60%; and oil, to fry, by 100%. I don't even tell you the electricity bill anymore...”.
Two years after the pandemic, the hospitality industry, one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 restrictions in Spain, suffers a new blow.
Within a series of global reports coordinated by the international division of , Spain travels to different parts of the country to ask bars for the recipe to keep tapas alive: a free dish in times of inflation.
Inflation has reached the stove in the form of a large increase in energy and raw material costs:
Sunflower oil is up by about 100% compared to 2021, and energy by 42%, according to data from Hostelería de España, and has put in check a Spanish tradition turned into a world-famous gastronomic heritage: will tapas, a free dish in times of escalating costs, survive inflation?
Simón says that they are trying everything: from raising the price of some dishes on the menu to keep the tapas free, to eliminating too expensive tapas: "we have the bienmesabe as a ration, but we had to remove it as a cover because it had too expensive preparation. Keeping it was a utopia."
Free tapas inflation risk statements
In Entre Cáceres y Badajoz, another tapas bar located in the Goya neighborhood, Esteban Auqui tells another technique to reduce costs, via consumption: "we made the decision to remove the jars. Instead, we serve drinks, something in between, they carry less beer, and imply a lower cost. We cannot modify the tapas, because we would lose the identity of the place".
We travel to León, 350 kilometers from Madrid, one of the Spanish cities with the greatest tradition of tapas. "They even put a lid on your coffee here. Until recently, there was a small war to see who gave the biggest cover, but that's over," says Paula Álvarez, manager of the Leon Hospitality Association.
According to Álvarez, there is no single recipe to weather this crisis. Instead, each business experiments on its own: "most have raised the price of consumption, another trend is to change the lid and serve something more affordable or smaller, there are those who have lowered the quality, and those who start offering different prices depending on whether the consumption is with a lid or without it".
However, he defends that "removing the lid is not a measure we propose in León, it is one of our great attractions".
"The tapa in a bar is fundamental, it is the visible face in the form of tasting, the litmus test that we pass with the client. If you like it, you order the dish," summarizes the concept Félix Presencio, owner of 2 establishments in the romantic neighborhood of León: El cantabrín and La otra abacería, one of the few bars that keeps inside remains of the Roman wall of the Leonese capital.
Free tapas inflation risk details
Félix tells how the price escalation and the supply crisis took away his star dish, which also served as a cover:
"I always try to guarantee the best quality of the product I serve," he explains: the oil, from Córdoba; the piquillo peppers come from El Bierzo, the beef chorizo comes from Astorga; the bocartes, from Barbate... Also the mayonnaise, although he does not reveal where the key ingredient of his star tapa comes from, which he jointly baptized as Ukrainian salad.
"The only one who bought that mayonnaise in León was me, and the distributor has told me that it is not profitable for him to bring it to me because of the cost increase," regrets Félix, who has since stopped marketing salad salad.
"I tried another one, and people told me it wasn't my salad. I look at the customer's face to see if he likes it, and faced with something he liked so much, I don't change the product. Now I'm worried because I don't have a salad bowl."
A similar fate befell another of his dishes: the Bierzo peppers, which he bought from some women who roasted them on the stone. "Now I can't find them anywhere, and I'm looking non-stop so that the plate doesn't disappear from me."
Looking at the panorama in the city, Félix laments: "La tapa is a typical thing, but there are many bars that are having a hard time. The one who tried to pull lung, did not reach the shore. I think this is going to happen, but many are going to die trying."
Free tapas inflation risk cases
Andalusia: a 'sudoku' to avoid losses
In the city of Malaga, the Uvedoble Tavern, one of the classic places of Malaga tapas, with several kitchen awards behind it, has had to withdraw products from the menu: "the scallops have risen a lot and we have removed them, also everything with duck meat," says Willie Orellana, owner and chef of the tavern.
The bars consulted assure that they will maintain the custom, but at the cost, yes, of less margins and a real sudoku to avoid a hole in the balance of accounts.
"We are already assuming some losses because we cannot make a radical increase in the menu," regrets Orellana, and says that, although this is not his case, "it is possible that some locals start buying cheaper product because they cannot assume costs and the tapas lose quality."
Free tapas inflation risk key points
"Businesses want to keep the amount and the quality of their caps to retain your customers, but if the raw material goes up and not adjusted the prices of the letter, the hardest hit will be the hoteliers, we don't have any way to fight inflation if it is not rising prices," says Gregorio García, president of the Provincial Federation of Enterprises of Hospitality and Tourism of Granada, one of the most iconic places to go for tapas, and famous for its bars in neighborhoods such as Chana, The Bullring or the Realejo.
"Beer has just risen again by about 7% and profit margins are already at a minimum. However, since prices are free, each business should think about what percentage it increases," adds García.
And that's how it is and that's where some Granada hoteliers are already like David Pasadas, the second generation of owners of the Pasadas Brewery establishment, located in Íllora, one of the most emblematic municipalities of the Granada west.
According to him, the recent increases experienced by sugary drinks and beer barely leave room to maintain the traditional and generous tapas. "We will have to raise the prices of the drink if the thing continues like this, it is currently at 2 euros and we will have to start charging 2.50 euros if we want to avoid losses."
Free tapas inflation risk summary
- The news source travels to different parts of the country to ask bars for the recipe to keep tapas alive: a free dish in times of inflation.
- After the hard blow dealt by the pandemic, the hospitality industry is now facing a new crisis that puts one of the most popular traditions in the country in check.
