The concept of “ownership” began all the way back to the point when creatures from the sea began to inhabit the land. Most animals are inherently territorial. They will claim any desirable territory as their own and then defend and protect it when challenged.
Long before there were towns, cities, and countries, there were groups of humans who banded together as families and extended families just as many types of animals continue to do so today in the wild. These family units hunted animals and gathered plants for food. The family units that were most successful prospered and grew in numbers. Those that did not, dwindled away as the successful ones took over. Just as during those past times, our EPIA members must be the successful ones to prosper and grow our influence and ownership over the packaged ice industry as it evolves.
Let’s look back to the time during the late medieval times when society was evolving into a fairly sophisticated feudal economy. By the late 1400s and early 1500s, European social, political, and economic life was prevailed over by the nobility in kingdoms and principalities. At that time there was a very strict “pecking order.” The king dominated a large territory that he protected. He controlled lesser territories, principalities, within his large territory that were run by lesser “nobles” who were allowed to control what took place within their own territories. In exchange for their limited autonomy, they gave their allegiance to protect the kingdom. These semi-autonomous territories were controlled by feudal lords. The relationship between the feudal lords and the king could be looked at as a mutual protection agreement. If one feudal lord was attacked from within or from outside the kingdom, the offended feudal lord’s king and other feudal lords with allegiance to the same king were sworn to provide mutual support to the challenged lord.
In theory and in reality this worked quite well. There were often rivalries and skirmishes within the kingdoms and invasions from other kingdoms, but generally, these mutual protection alliances worked well for the nobility.
But what about the non-dominant members of the communities, the commoners of the kingdom? They were strictly controlled by the privileged few and these commoners made up the vast majority of people in the kingdom.
Some of these commoners provided specialized and essential trades such as the:
- Bakers who provided bread as a daily staple of medieval life, and good bakers were employed by nobles in their manors and castles;
- Blacksmiths who forged tools and weapons, sharpened weapons, made and repaired armor for the protection of the kingdom;
- Masons who designed and built walls, castles, and fortifications for protection;
- Carpenters who built furniture, roofing, shutters, doors, and wood paneling;
- Clothiers who made clothes and had knowledge of various fine and expensive materials used to glorify the nobility;
- Potters who were craftsmen of clay, porcelain, and early forms of ceramics, and produced pots for cooking and storage and occasionally worked as sculptors to glorify the nobility;
- Cobblers who made footwear, satchels, saddles, and other leather goods;
- Other craft and trade specialties that were needed to provide security and maintain a safe everyday life.
In medieval towns and cities, craftsmen tended to form exclusive groups based on their trades. Each of these specialized craftsmen controlled the trade secrets of their respective crafts. Usually, the founders of these exclusive groups were more entrepreneurial and were afforded a relative degree of autonomy as free independent master craftsmen. They also trained apprentices and engaged journeymen as helpers to provide for the needs of all within the kingdom.
In the early years, these exclusive groups of like craftsmen and tradesmen were called guilds. There were several types of guilds, including the two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds. The European system of guilds incorporated societies of merchants in each town or city and operated at the “pleasure” of the lord of the manor and the king of the realm. But in reality, the “lords of the manors” were helpless without the support of the tradesmen that made up these guilds. Trade guilds provided craftsmen a way of protecting their common interests while still providing support to the king with a division of their earnings, be it products or money earned from trading. The number of sanctioned tradesmen in each guild was limited by the guild members themselves. The number of these specialized tradesmen was determined by themselves in order to meet the needs of the towns while providing sufficient benefits for the guild members themselves who thrived as the local business class.
Today we are faced with an economy based upon similar specialization. One company might have many workers, each with their own specific skills. As in the past, one worker with one specific skill has little ability to dominate a trade or influence the significance of his specialization. However, many workers with that same specific and necessary skill banding together with others having that same special skill can provide leverage to elevate an essential trade to a position of relative dominance. Today associations can use similar leverage to their advantage, as did the guilds of medieval times and the unions of the recent past, and provide significance and relevance for their association members’ desires and needs.
Associations such as the EPIA operate in a similar manner as guilds of old, at the “pleasure” of the lord of the manor and the king. Today associations such as ours operate with the permission of the government. We have become acclimated to our environment of modern-day trade and can have a great deal of influence on how our industry is evolving today. We have the ability to set the standard of quality and maintain that position through knowledge, continuing education, and experience. In order to be significant, we must promote the relevance of the packaged ice industry and demonstrate our leadership in our industry.
As we continually validate and promote the value of the packaged ice industry, we will be in a position to influence the laws that provide guidelines and restrictions on how business is run in the packaged ice industry. Once this is routinely done in practice, we can share the resulting benefits amongst our association members. In so doing we can be in a position to dominate our industry, but only if we make the conscious effort to plan how to do so and execute the plan thoughtfully. We must be cognizant of how the industry is viewed by the public and the government. Only then can we carefully influence all restrictions and rules that determine how the packaged ice industry operates in Europe.
Our group voice makes us able to provide superior customer service and a superior product to other packaged ice producers who might “go it alone” or have a lesser or even a disorganized interest group with lax standards of quality and therefore less influence on the government legislators. The EPIA is in a position where it, if not in control of, has the opportunity to greatly influence the direction that the packaged ice industry in Europe is heading. The ice industry today is fairly new in most of Europe and growing fast. If we, as the dominant trade association in our industry, do not take the opportunity to mold the industry to our interests, we will be constrained by the European Union officials. Without taking the initiative to lead how the industry matures, we will miss the best chance to determine our group and individual positions in the industry we are building.
During the 2019 annual convention in Bilbao, you will hear a great deal of discussion about how your Board of Directors has been working to propose initiatives to make the EPIA the controlling force for determining how your industry will grow and how you will prosper.
In order to survive into the future as the packaged ice industry changes, we must continue to adapt and learn from our current and future members. The changes today are similar to how crafts and trades changed and evolved over time. Your ideas are needed in order to form a unified force to actively develop the initiatives for influencing and controlling the direction of the packaged ice industry. Bring your ideas to Bilbao and share them with your fellow ice men and women. You are the future of the EPIA and the packaged ice industry which produces “Ice you can trust.”