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Well
the answer is quite a lot. Sales of ice cream are very closely
linked to temperatures and sunshine. The warmer the weather
the more we tend to buy.
So
if organisations such as the Met Office can predict the trends
in temperatures over the following few weeks or months, then
ice cream manufacturers can anticipate the likely demand for
their products and increase or decrease production accordingly.
Ice
cream is a fairly obvious example - but it is not always so
simple. Take fizzy drinks for example. As the temperature
rises the demand for these drinks increases. But above about
23 or 24 degrees Celsius people turn away from these drinks
and instead they look to bottled water to quench their thirst.
Anticipating
the demand for products in supermarkets has become much more
sophisticated than merely stocking more salads in hot weather.
Most cat owners will tell you that their ‘moggies’ eat less
food in warm weather. So rather than tell the petfood manufacturers
when the weather is going to be, we can now tell them what
the demand for catfood will be.
This
link between weather and maunfacturing can be a highly profitable
one, but it doesn’t work all the time. Grass grows faster
in warmer weather, so you might think that the demand for
lawnmowers would increase.
But
that’s not the case. After a winter in a damp garden shed
most of us either buy a new mower at the start of the season
when the old one doesn’t work, or - like me - they soldier
on with old one.
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