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If this is something that The Ice Co has taken proactive steps to address – all its ice is now made using green energy, 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. Competitors' attempts at market consolidation are a constant risk. In 2018, the private equity-backed Procubitos Europe group was formed out of a merger between the two largest packaged-ice manufacturers in Spain; 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.
The Ice Co公司現在所有的冰塊都是用綠色能源制造，所有的包裝都是100%可回收利用，塑料的使用量在過去兩年里減少了40%，如果這是Ice Co已經采取積極措施來解決的問題，那么行業內的其他事件仍然是他們無法控制的。競爭對手試圖整合市場的風險將持續存在。2018年，西班牙兩家最大的包裝冰制造商合并成立了私人股本支持的Procubitos Europe集團。在收購了意大利最大的競爭者Polo Nord后，該集團現在在德國也擁有了包裝冰，就在The Ice Co公司統治的邊緣。
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. 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.
消費者的口味仍變化無常：繼杜松子酒和奎寧水的熱潮后，人們又開始談論非酒精烈酒的爆炸式增長、龍舌蘭酒和蘇打水的黎明、手工朗姆酒的新興霸主地位。這些趨勢的細節是沒有意義的。對制冰商來說，唯一重要的是如何供應這些飲料以及需要冰塊的人如何獲得這些飲料。
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), 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.
在由疫情引起的向網絡零售轉變的過程中，或許有理由保持謹慎的樂觀態度(對于像包裝冰一樣笨重且難以攜帶的產品來說，這無疑是一種獎勵)，但與瑪爾斯之前的幾代人一樣，波莉·梅特卡夫只希望保持警惕，希望她和她的團隊能夠為市場提供各種形式的冰水。
"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.
“我們總是在向前看——我們不想落在后面，”她指出，對于一個不同行業的總經理來說，這可能是一個可以完全接受的陳詞濫調。
Ice, though, is different. And The Ice Co is not just the company that makes ice; it is also the company that ice made. 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. 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.
不過冰塊就不同了。The Ice Co不僅制造了冰塊，同時也被冰塊所塑造。正如200年的現代冰貿易歷史給我們的啟示：我們最好不要忽視那些由于太過枯燥而不值得我們注意的事情。冰塊在杯子里融化的證據表明，是世界改變了冰，但冰也改變了世界。
