Bread supply begins to normalise

BREAD supplies have markedly improved after millers upped flour deliveries to bakers from 200 tonnes per day last month to 650 tonnes.

Bakers require about 800 tonnes of flour daily, and supplies are expected to normalise in a fortnight.

More than 200 trucks were dispatched to the Port of Beira, Mozambique last week to complement rail deliveries.

The National Railways of Zimbabwe has been moving an average of 20 wagons daily against a target of 60 wagons, which caused supply bottlenecks on the local market.

Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe chairperson Mr Tafadzwa Musarara told The Sunday Mail last week that they were expecting flour supplies to bakers to normalise by November 25.

Small bakeries and confectionaries, who had been cut off last month, are now receiving supplies.

“We have procured another shipment of about 30 000 metric tonnes of wheat which will be docking at Beira on November 25. If this consignment is paid for in time we should have enough supplies for the festive season,” said Mr Musarara.

“The country is now on a recovery path and as of (last Friday), our flour supplies to bakeries have risen to about 70 percent and we anticipate that in the next 10 days, we should be able to meet demand.

“This improvement is because of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which has paid in full the entire wheat consignment we received last month.”

Wheat harvests will augment supplies.

Zimbabwe expects to harvest between 120 000 and 200 000 tonnes of wheat - about half of annual national requirements.

Panic buying has not helped the situation, with indications being that where Zimbabweans consumed 1,2 million loaves of bread daily, demand had shot up to 1,8 million loaves in the past two months.