Price of flour goes down but bread costs the same
If you are wondering whether the cost of bread will decrease now that the price of flour dropped by ten percent…don’t hold your breath because all indications are it won’t. Bakers say that this is because the new wholesale cost of flour of is nowhere close to the price it was prior to December of 2007 when it went up by sixty-five percent. The new wholesale price is seventy-seven dollars per hundred pounds down nine dollars. A release from the Belize Bakers’ Association says that bakers have agreed to maintain the current price of bread at one dollar and fifty-cents at whole sale price and at one dollar seventy-five cents at retail. President of the Association, Andre Perez, told us that bakers have been operating at a loss and that now that flour as gone down, they are just catching up.
Andre Perez, President, Belize Bakers’ Association
”One of the most important things we need to look at way back then we were just selling at a dollar twenty-five or a dollar ten cents if you want to speak that way. I remember that was way back in November 2007. We were still struggling at that price. And that’s when the association really got together got more active because everybody was coming up the members we’re selling sliced bread at this price, we’re not getting anywhere and we made up some figures and we submitted to the government and they saw that indeed we were not making anything. We’re pretty much to the point of subsidizing when it comes to the sliced bread. And that is pretty much where we at right now. A dollar fifty to be retailed at a dollar seventy-five; we feel as an association that it is a more than reasonable price to provide for our consumers in times like these. We understand this situation, we understand the economic situation of the country as well as the region and we have never considered the option of becoming a militant association to be roiling up and everything because we are not like that. We consider ourselves responsible and we have a commitment to the consumers and that is the most important thing at this point in time.”
And while the cost of bread will not decrease, there is some good news. As of Thursday, the wholesale price of the staple rice will be reduced by five cents per pound. So tomorrow you can purchase your rice at one dollar and thirty cents per pound.
