Seven weeks ago, the Minister of Agriculture stood up in the House of Representatives and announced that the government would be providing a bread subsidy following the increase in the price of flour. The bakers breathed a sigh of relief because for many of them, it was costing more than one dollar 75 cents to produce a 16 ounce loaf - which is price controlled at that dollar - 75.
So the relief to the bakers, was really intended as a relief to consumers - but, up to now, bakers say they still haven't gotten the subsidy, and they haven't been allowed to raise the price of the 16 ounce bread either. So they're making one last plea to the government in to keep their businesses afloat.
Courtney Menzies has the story.
With the price of wheat on the rise, bakers began to panic, knowing that an increase in the prices of their products would be inevitable.
But before that could happen, the government swooped in with promises of a bread subsidy that would ease the financial burden from the shoulders of the bakers and the consumers:
PUP Subsidizes Bakers To Keep Bread Cheap
Hon. Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture
"I am pleased to announce to this honourable house and the nation that this PUP government will not authorize any increase of the control price of a 16oz loaf of bread."
"The government recognizes and accepts that production costs have increased. In order to maintain the price of a 16 ounce loaf of bread at current levels, the government will implement a direct subsidy program designed to compensate revenue they will forego as a result of the decision not to increase the controlled price."
"The program will feature direct payments to bakers by government of Belize. The subsidy program will be instituted in an equitable manner that will ensure that smaller baker benefit from a small share of subsidies in the line with their output, PUP and UDP own bakeries. The rate of the subsidy will be 25 cents per loaf with flour purchases being the basis for calculating disbursement levels for specific bakeries. The program accepts the data submitted by the bakers indicating a conversion rate of 120 loafs per sack of flour, the program will use 2021 data as a baseline for estimating production levels for specific bakeries with an estimate of 70% of production being the subsidizes product."
This announcement was made on June 3rd, and the initial runtime for the subsidy was to be from June to December. But it's been 49 days and bakers say they still haven't seen a cent of that subsidy. And that's because the price of flour has increased, as the prime minister confirmed last Wednesday:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"The price of flour was agreed that there was going to be a raise on, I think, there's two types of flours, one that I think the bakers use and one that the public uses. The one the bakers use, I think, I'm trying to remember the exact numbers but there was an agreement that there was going to be a slight increase because the price of wheat worldwide is going up."
Now, the bakers have all but lost hope in this subsidy, and are back to the beginning of the crisis - not being able to absorb the increase any longer. And they say it's not just the flour, but the cost of the other ingredients that have gone up as well.
Brown sugar, for example, has seen a jump from $36 per 100 pounds to $46 for the same amount. And shortening is $52 more expensive, from $65 per 50 pounds, to $117.
And that's not including the cost increases in white sugar, oil, plastic bags, and butane gas.
And now, without the subsidy, these bakers are back to requesting a 50 cent increase on the price of the 16 ounce loaf, just to be able to justify the cost of production.
If not - pretty soon your corner baker will start doing what many others have: scrap production of the 16 ounce loaf and start producing 17 ounces which is not controlled - and which can be sold for any price they choose.
When we asked Minister Jose Mai for a comment, he directed us to the Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Chris Coye. We reached out to Coye, but up to news time, he still had not responded.
