Innscor Holdings says its bread-making subsidiary – Bakers Inn – will hike bread prices to $2,70 at retail, an 86 percent increase from current prices of around $1,40.
Bakers Inn is the biggest bread producer in the country, with a market share of circa 48%. At full tilt Bakers Inn produces 500 000 loaves per day.
The price adjustment is with effect from Wednesday 6 May, 2019.
Although the country’s other bakeries are yet to confirm if this an industry-wide price hike, this marks the fifth upward adjustment in the price of bread over the past few months as Zimbabwe struggles with inflationary pressures.
The country’s annual inflation surpassed the 50% mark in January 2019 as fears of hyperinflation loom.
Zimbabwe has been struggling with dwindling flour stocks diminish as the government has been failing to pay for imported wheat.
Last month, the bread price increased by around 66%.
That increase, however, did not have anything to do with the price of wheat from suppliers.
In December 2018 and January 2019, the bread price increased at least thrice.
Recently, the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe’s (GMAZ) general manager Lynette Veremu wrote a letter to the National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe (NBAZ) instructing it not to pay for 55 000 tons of wheat in warehouses in Mozambique and Harare.
Read part of the letter:
“We regret to advise that the current stocks for foreign wheat for bread flour have depleted to 5 800 tonnes and … we are left with less than eight days of national bread flour supplies.”
The letter was dated February 18.