Price of bread goes to $1.50 on Monday

Virtually all its ingredients are imported but that has not stopped Belizeans—and people all over the world—from making bread a staple of their diet. And come Monday that staple will cost an extra shilling. This afternoon News Five’s Janelle Chanona stocked up in anticipation of the increase.

Zebedee Pitterson, Sunnyside Bakery
“I think haad fu raise the bread but if you di lose, you wa betta yu shut down yu business.”

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Come Monday morning, bread sold in Belize City will retail for one dollar and fifty cents. According to Zebedee Pitterson of Sunnyside Bakery on Racecourse Street, in the face of rising operational costs, bakers have no choice.

Zebedee Pitterson
“We agree fi raise the bread from one twenty-five to one fifty because as weh I tell yu we have to put this [a pack] inna the bread and the price ah shortening jump from thirty-eight to sixty-five dollars. The plastic went up in three years from forty-five to seventy dollars. All deh thing haffu come out ah the profit of the business so the business no di mek no profit bikaaz then if you have to tek out all deh expense and yu noh raise the price, everybody deh behind.”

The last price hike for bread was in March 2003 when the popular commodity left the “dalla” division and migrated to one twenty five. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.

Other bakers have cited the rising cost of wheat, butane and diesel for their shrinking margins.