An ice cream salesman pleaded for compensation from Belco after $10,000 of his stock melted during an electricity blackout in the West End.

Peter Jovetic, of Alex and Pete’s Bermuda Ice Cream Shop in Dockyard, lost dozens of gallons of ice cream that had been prepared for the island’s first rum festival when power went out for more than 12 hours last Thursday.

He told The Royal Gazette: “It breaks your heart when you work this hard ­— and in the end, it’s just out of your control.”

Mr Jovetic, whose business has struggled since tourism plunged during the Covid-19 pandemic, had hoped for a windfall through the two-day weekend festival, a joint production between Gosling’s Ltd and the West End Development Corporation.

He said he would recover only a fraction of his investment from insurance and that Belco had refused his request for financial help after the meltdown.

“I honestly think Belco should have some insurance in place,” Mr Jovetic said.

“After all, they’re saying it’s the power line.”

“No, this is neglect. They haven’t invested in the infrastructure. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. It’s very disappointing they won’t even help a small business.

“Everybody is struggling right now.

“I don’t understand that I now have to go through my insurance company who will put up my premium for something that is not my fault.”

He added: “I felt sorrow. Sadness. Now my anger has gone to disgust.”

About 7,000 customers were left in the dark after the Belco transmission in Southampton that supplied the West End with power suffered a major breakdown on Thursday afternoon. The lights came back at about 9am the next day.

Dennis Pimentel, the president of Belco, apologised on Friday to customers and said island-wide repairs to its grid would avert similar outages in the future.

Mr Jovetic said a team of three had worked a full day on Gosling’s rum ice cream flavours ahead of the weekend, but that 31 three-gallon tubs of ice cream, along with 45 pints intended for grocery stories and Wadson’s Farm, had to be thrown away.

He said: “They all had to go down the drain. Ice cream is a very delicate commodity.

“As soon as it melts, you can’t sell it. It’s got to go.”

Mr Jovetic added: “At the end of the day, we’re not making it.

“We lose money every weekend. But we’re open for this because we want to stay relevant and give a service.

“That’s the whole point in making all the rum flavours. We were part of the festival.

Belco did not respond to questions yesterday by press time.