Consumers ditch expensive luxuries including bread

PRODUCERS and retailers need to wake up to growing consumer resistance when prices soar as many simply go without or find a cheaper susbstitute, punishing the price raisers, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers’ (CZR)has said.

CZR president Mr Denford Mutashu ( pic

tured below) said the market was now in self-correction mode because the high prices have caused consumers to do without many items that they saw as luxuries rather than bare necessities.

He said the increase in unsold bread on shop shelves was a wake-up call for business as consumers were exercising their rights by finding substitutes. Many now bake their own bread or cook sweet potatoes, pototes or other traditional foods like manhuchu (samp).

“The market is in self-correction mode regarding pricing and when consumers’ pockets are stretched to the limit by outrageous pricing, the punishing result is exactly what we are experiencing, not only bread other basics as well.

“Consumers are staring at bread on the shelves as if you have displayed snakes and it is a wake-up call for business as we have begun to see prices falling while returns are the order of the day.

“Consumers have retained their power to exercise their rights by abandoning overpriced goods and services while seeking for alternative or substitute goods in many respects.

“As income gets more and more eroded, the price madness is decimated with business waking up to the naked reality that consumers still decide at the end of the day,” he said.

On Tuesday, Baker’s Inn led major bakeries in reducing bread prices by around $1 a loaf after the Government started supplying millers with cheaper wheat.

The National Bakers’ Association of Zimbabwe (NBAZ) chief executive Mr Ngoni Mazango recently said that the wholesale price of a loaf hag been slashed from $14 to $13.

He also said the Government has supplied millers with subsidised wheat which by and large reduced the price of flour. In response to this development, Baker’s Inn bakeries had decided to extend the benefit to the consumer despite the escalating costs of other inputs like power, diesel, local and imported raw materials.

A survey by The Herald on Thursday in the leading retailers showed that Baker’s Inn bread was being sold at $14,50, but in-house brands were still a maximum of $14, largely because they did not incuro transport costs.