The cold chain is breaking down in warehouses, trucks, and stores, while foods that require refrigeration are disappearing from refrigerators.
14ymedio, Natalia López, Havana, July 24, 2026 – When a customer opens the door of a refrigerator at La Puntilla store, they no longer expect to find a tray of chicken or a package of cheese. The first thing they notice is the absence of that blast of cold air that used to escape. The motors are turned off, the shelves are empty, and the silence is broken only by the distant hum of a generator. In a Havana where heat and blackouts have become inseparable companions, even the cold seems to have disappeared from stores.
This Thursday, the market in the municipality of Playa presented a bleak scene. The refrigerators remained empty and switched off. The butcher section seemed frozen in time, with several employees having almost no work as they stood behind counters with no merchandise. According to one of the workers, there are several reasons, but they all lead to the same crisis.
“Nobody has any way to keep anything cold—not in the warehouses, not in the trucks, and certainly not here,” the employee told 14ymedio. Along with the prolonged blackouts comes another problem: the lack of supplies. “We’re not even receiving merchandise of that kind anymore,” he admitted.
“Nobody has any way to keep anything cold—not in the warehouses, not in the trucks, and certainly not here”
The same scene is repeated in other parts of the capital. A few kilometers away, at the dollar-denominated market near the Almendares River bridge, the situation is equally discouraging. The freezers remain empty, and tape blocks access to the area designated for meat products, an unmistakable sign that there is nothing requiring refrigeration to sell.
Customers receive the same answer at the store on 26th Street. “No, we’re not getting any of that,” an employee replies when a shopper asks about meat, cold cuts, or cheese. The exchange lasts only a few seconds. The lack of products makes any further explanation unnecessary.
In response to a question from this newspaper about whether the merchandise arrives but is refused because of the lack of refrigeration, or whether the State simply is no longer trying to supply refrigerated products to its own dollar stores, the employee explained that it is “a bit of both.” Store managers “don’t place the orders, and if a truck arrives with chicken, they tell it they can’t accept it because otherwise we’d end up with too much spoilage, and that can’t be justified. The company itself won’t allow you to report losses of that magnitude.”
At La Mariposa, on Tulipán Street in Nuevo Vedado, the deterioration of the commercial offering has reached an almost symbolic point. One of the refrigerators, disconnected from the power supply, is no longer preserving food; it now serves as an improvised shelf for storing packages of macaroni. Where frozen products once stood, only dry pasta remains, capable of enduring entire days without electricity.
The transformation has also reached establishments that for years were a benchmark for those with access to foreign currency. The La Isla de Cuba store, located just a few meters from Fraternity Park, has remained closed for weeks, another symptom of the difficulties facing a retail network that is increasingly unable to guarantee a stable supply.
Nor is the crisis sparing the private sector. Small businesses that until a few months ago competed to offer a wide variety of frozen meats have drastically reduced their inventories. Most now carry only indivisible packages of about ten pounds of chicken drumsticks. The popular mixed packs of drumsticks and thighs, much more sought after by families because they allowed them to make better use of their purchases, have practically disappeared from refrigerators. Ground meat, hot dogs, cheeses, and other foods that depend on a stable cold chain are also in short supply.
The popular mixed packs of drumsticks and thighs, much more sought after by families because they allowed them to make better use of their purchases, have practically disappeared from refrigerators
“That’s like jumping into the sea without a life jacket. Nobody wants to take that risk right now,” admitted the manager of a private small business with a store on Ayestarán Street. “A lot of people come asking, and you can tell they’re getting desperate, but nobody can demand that we buy merchandise when so much of it is going to spoil. That’s our decision, and we’ve decided not to take the risk.”
Merchants acknowledge that the financial risk has become far too great. Keeping frozen goods during blackouts that in many parts of Havana now last well over 12 hours a day means accepting losses that are difficult to recover. On top of that are power outages at warehouses, cold storage facilities, and distribution centers, as well as the challenges of transporting refrigerated food in a country where fuel is also in short supply.
According to official figures published recently, retail sales continue to decline, and data for the first months of the year already show a significant contraction compared to 2025. However, all indications suggest that the statistics for June and July could be even worse, coinciding with the worsening energy crisis, marked by blackouts lasting more than 20 hours in numerous provinces and increasingly prolonged outages in the capital as well.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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