With Mike Adeyemi ([email protected])
Bread is fast disappearing from the tables of the average Kwaran as a result of frequent hike of the staple food.
Come January next year, many homes may still cancel bread from their menu list if the bakers make good their threat to turn off their ovens. This is to protest the proposed increase in the price of baking flour by the millers. From 2019, bakers will have to contend with a 10 per cent increase in the cost of flour per bag.
The high cost of baking flour, the major ingredient for bread, has explained the resultant hike in price of bread.
Findings have shown that numerically, the size of the bread industry in the state is 520, with an average workforce of 25 per bakery. Beyond the huge market that bread creates, the sector also creates direct and indirect jobs through the value chain from manufacturing to distribution level.
However, the Kwara Master Bakers recently gave hints that with effect from Q1 2019, a 25 per cent increase is imminent on bread
The President of the association, Babatunde Gidado, in a recent interview said, “The challenges we face as a result of the incessant increase in the prices of baking ingredients have rendered most Kwara bakeries comatose, making us to operate at a loss.” The association noted that though the cost of flour, sugar and other baking ingredients had increased threefold in the past three years, there had not been corresponding increase in the prices of bread by the Kwara bakers.
According to the association boss, between 2015 and 2018, the price of flour had increased from N6,500 to N11,500 per 50kg bag, while sugar had seen 77 per cent rise in price within the same period.
He added that salt, margarine, yeast and preservatives had recorded 84 per cent, 67 per cent, 112 per cent, 45 per cent and 137 per cent increases, respectively.
“Also, the price of diesel, has gone up by 57 per cent, while the price of improvers used in enhancing the quality of bread had risen by 160 per cent during the period, whereas conversely, the price of bread has only witnessed 11 per cent rise within the period.
“Most of us took loans with double-digit interest rates from financial institutions to fund our bakery projects and are finding it extremely difficult to meet our loan repayment obligations,” Gidado noted, adding that something had to be done to save the industry from extinction.
He said, “Given the current situation, most Kwara bakeries may be forced to embark on a 25 per cent price increase, which will further make bread unaffordable to the common man in the state.
An increase in commodity prices can affect the inflation expectation of consumer to a greater extent than price increase of many other goods categories.
The high cost of baking ingredients, a principal variable has expand the concomitant reason to push bread prices up.
How can government abate the exponential price hike of bread? Perhaps, the state government should subsidise the commodity making it affordable for an average consumer, who bear the implication of price hike.
Government can also give incentive which will consequently reduce cost of production.
In addition, the state government as part of its economic policy incorporate bakers in its palliative empowerment scheme and through provision of soft loans.
