Brexit to put ‘an extra 10c on price of bread’

BREXIT could put an extra 10c on the price of a loaf in Ireland, the milling industry has warned.

80% of the flour used in the Republic for baked goods comes from the UK, and may face a stiff tariff if a deal is not struck.

‘If tariffs were to be introduced the rate the EU normally charges those at would add 8c to 10c to a loaf of bread in the Republic,’ said Alex Waugh, director-general of the National Association of British and Irish Millers.

‘It is pretty inflationary, assuming the flour continues to come from the same source as now.

‘Once you introduce a tariff everything changes, so the likelihood is that the flour currently coming from the UK would come from somewhere else in the EU where there would not be a tariff.’

He said the result would be jobs lost in the UK. Flour is sent from the UK to Ireland to be refined into anything from bread and cakes to coating for chicken nuggets and battered fish.

It is often exported back to the UK as part of finished goods. Over the last 20 years the UK has become the main supplier of milled flour to the Republic. The Republic’s only mill is in Portarlington, Co. Laois.

However, half of the flour used by Irish bakers is milled on the island of Ireland, a significant proportion of that from Belfast, Mr Waugh said.

He added: ‘What we are seeing is politicians trying to respond to different pressures in different places. From the point of view of our business, maintaining that tariff-free trade between the UK and Ireland is crucial.’

WITH so much uncertainty surrounding Brexit, its negative consequence for Irish consumers remain vague and unfathomable. But the warning from our milling industry that new trade tariffs on British imported flour could raise the price of a loaf of bread by 10c is a tangible indication of how we could be hit in our pockets.

Given that flour is also an essential ingredient in cake, we will also have to do without Marie Antoinette’s infamous maxim on the matter.