Kwara bakers mull 50% hike in bread price

The Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN), Kwara State chapter has said they will increase the price of bread in the state by 50 percent.

The Chairman of the Kwara State chapter of AMBCN, Abdulfatai Alaba disclosed this during an interview with our reporter.

According

to

him, ‘The prices of baking ingredients have increased due to the economic situation in the country, adding that manufacturers are now running at a loss’.

“Prices of all ingredients used for baking are too high, especially flour and sugar between the first quarter of last year and now. There has been a monthly addition of N500 on a bag of flour and bakers have been bearing the additional cost.

“But as it is, baking bread and selling at the current price is no longer profitable. We have been appealing to the millers but they are groaning about the absence and increase in the price of foreign exchange. The only option we have now is to increase the price of the commodity by 50 per cent”, Alaba said.

A bag of flour, he said, which sold at N12,500 before the outbreak of coronavirus, now sells at N16,000. Yeast which was N13,000 before is now N16,500’.

“Also, a bag of sugar now sells between N19,000 and N20,000 depending on bargaining power against the preCOVID-19 price of N14,000,” the bakery boss stressed.

Alaba added that government support is needed to reduce production costs, which according to him is killing the bakery business in Kwara State.