Price of bread shoots up 60% overnight in Zimbabwe, crippled by drought, power woes

The price of bread, Zimbabwe’s second most-consumed staple, jumped 60% overnight.

This was due to escalating costs of production, the national bakers’ association said on Wednesday, adding more woes to consumers grappling with triple-digit inflation.

Zimbabweans are experiencing severe economic hardship, echoing the hyperinflation horcrippled rors during late President Robert Mugabe’s rule when citizens lost their pensions and savings, and businesses were forced to shut down.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over from Mugabe after an army coup in 2017, has called for patience as his government struggles to convince Zimbabweans that its policies will revive an economy by shortages of electricity, fuel and medicines and a drought that has hit farm output hard.

National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe president Denis Wala said the price of fuel and electricity, as well as rolling power cuts that forced producers to use diesel generators, had pushed up the cost of producing bread.

“Bakers cannot continue to absorb all these costs; that is why we have had to increase the price,” Wala told reporters.

Bread now costs Z$15 (R0.62) a loaf, up from Z$9.45 (R0.39) on Tuesday. But shortages still persisted on Wednesday, with many shops saying they had not received supplies.

Zimbabwe imports most of its annual requirement of 400,000 tons of wheat, but acute shortages of dollars have constrained imports.

Although farmers have started harvesting wheat, production is expected to fall below the 160,600 metric tons last year, farmers groups say.

Zimbabwe suspended publication of official annual inflation data on August 1, following the introduction of a new currency. In its last official figures, inflation hit more than 175% in June, its highest level since the hyperinflation under Mugabe in 2009.

Soaring prices have angered workers, whose salaries have lagged behind inflation. The latest increase in the price of bread will embolden calls by state staff to have their salaries indexed to the dollar. —

Bakers cannot continue to absorb all these costs; that is why we had to up the price