14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 5 July 2018 — Egg production in Cuba is experiencing difficult times after the damages left by Hurricane Irma and the floods of tropical storm Alberto. The unrationed supply of eggs is way down and several areas of the country and the amounts being delivered to the rationed markets are also down. To provide some relief, the authorities are importing powdered eggs.
“Powdered eggs available,” reads a sign outside a Havana bodega where the clerk confirmed that people don’t know how to use them. “Can you make an omelette or scrambled eggs with these?” asks a retired woman looking at a one kilo packet selling at 65 Cuban pesos (CUP), a third of her monthly pension. Ultimately, the high costs and the unfamiliarity are enough to disuade her and she decides not to buy them.
The dehydrated egg, coming from Brazil, is a great help to those businesses selling sweets which have had to reduce their production because of the scarcity of ingredients. “It’s better because we don’t have to refrigerate it, it doesn’t spoil easily, and there are no surprises when you open it,” says a seller of tarts and cupcakes.
“The problem is that when it first arrived you could find them everywhere but now you have to walk all over the place to find them,” says the self-employed baker, who fears that the dried version of the product will suffer the same fate as the fresh version, “it will run out and we’ll have to find another substitute.”
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