Price of flour skyrockets, bread stable for now

There is no shortage of news tonight, including a major political showdown, but we’ll lead with a late evening announcement from the government declaring a major jump in the price of flour. The press release is confusing and we were unable to contact press secretary Delroy Cuthkelvin for clarification but it appears that the wholesale control price of household flour will go up from fifty-eight dollars per one hundred pound sack to eighty-two dollars, a massive forty-one percent increase. Where this puts the retail price is not entirely clear. Although a chart on the release pegs the price at a maximum of eighty-four cents per pound, that would mean a profit margin for grocers of only two cents per pound. A quick call to retailers this evening had prices ranging close to a dollar. There is some good news however, and that is that for the time being, monopoly flour maker Belize Mills Limited will maintain its old price to bakers who will stick to the current control price for a one pound loaf of bread at one-twenty-five for un-sliced and one-fifty sliced. The release noted that this arrangement will be reviewed at the time of the next wheat shipment. The release also predicted that flour prices are likely to go higher as the world market price of wheat continues to climb. Reasons cited for the spike in wheat prices are higher fuel costs, drought in Australia plus a shift in the U.S. from food production to planting corn for subsidized ethanol.