英国卫报:小冰块下的大生意(11)（在线收听）

If this is something that The Ice Co has taken proactive steps to address – all its ice is now made using green energy,

The Ice Co公司现在所有的冰块都是用绿色能源制造，所有的包装都是100%可回收利用，

all packaging is 100% recyclable and plastic use has been reduced 40% in the past two years – other events in the industry remain beyond their control.

塑料的使用量在过去两年里减少了40%，如果这是Ice Co已经采取积极措施来解决的问题，那么行业内的其他事件仍然是他们无法控制的。

Competitors' attempts at market consolidation are a constant risk.

竞争对手试图整合市场的风险将持续存在。

In 2018, the private equity-backed Procubitos Europe group was formed out of a merger between the two largest packaged-ice manufacturers in Spain;

2018年，西班牙两家最大的包装冰制造商合并成立了私人股本支持的Procubitos Europe集团。

after adding the largest Italian player, Polo Nord, to the portfolio, the group now owns packaged ice in Germany, too, right on the fringes of The Ice Co's dominion.

在收购了意大利最大的竞争者Polo Nord后，该集团现在在德国也拥有了包装冰，就在The Ice Co公司统治的边缘。

Consumer tastes remain fickle: following the gin-and-tonic boom, there is now talk of the non-alcoholic spirits explosion, the dawn of tequila and soda, the emerging craft rum supremacy.

消费者的口味仍变化无常：继杜松子酒和奎宁水的热潮后，人们又开始谈论非酒精烈酒的爆炸式增长、龙舌兰酒和苏打水的黎明、手工朗姆酒的新兴霸主地位。

The specifics of these trends are meaningless. The only thing that matters for an ice-maker is how those drinks are served, and how the people who need ice for them get hold of it.

这些趋势的细节是没有意义的。对制冰商来说，唯一重要的是如何供应这些饮料以及需要冰块的人如何获得这些饮料。

There might be grounds for cautious optimism in the general pandemic-induced shift towards online retail (always a bonus with a product as bulky and unpleasant to carry as packaged ice),

在由疫情引起的向网络零售转变的过程中，或许有理由保持谨慎的乐观态度(对于像包装冰一样笨重且难以携带的产品来说，这无疑是一种奖励)，

but like generations of Marrs before her, Polly Metcalfe can only hope to remain vigilant, in the hope that she and her team are able to provide the market with frozen water in whatever form the market dictates.

但与玛尔斯之前的几代人一样，波莉·梅特卡夫只希望保持警惕，希望她和她的团队能够为市场提供各种形式的冰水。

"We're always looking out – we don't want to be left behind," she noted, and for an MD in a different industry, that might scan as a perfectly acceptable platitude.

“我们总是在向前看——我们不想落在后面，”她指出，对于一个不同行业的总经理来说，这可能是一个可以完全接受的陈词滥调。

Ice, though, is different. And The Ice Co is not just the company that makes ice; it is also the company that ice made.

不过冰块就不同了。The Ice Co不仅制造了冰块，同时也被冰块所塑造。

As 200 years of modern ice-trade history have taught us, we would do well not to overlook the things too apparently uninteresting to merit our attention.

正如200年的现代冰贸易历史给我们的启示：我们最好不要忽视那些由于太过枯燥而不值得我们注意的事情。

The evidence of the cubes melting in your glass suggests that it is the world that changes ice. But ice has changed the world, too.

冰块在杯子里融化的证据表明，是世界改变了冰，但冰也改变了世界。