Bakers have little to celebrate on World Bread Day
Bread price increases are lagging behind rising costs; consumption down since 1950s
Prague, Oct 16 (ČTK) — Czech bread production dropped by 5 percent to 278,868 tons year-on-year in 2014, while consumption grew by 0.7 kg per capita and an average Czech ate 40 kg of bread, Jaromír Dřízal, head of the Czech Business Association of Bakers and Confectioners, said on Thursday referring to preliminary results of the Czech Statistical Office.
Production in 2013 declined by 4 percent.
Every Czech spent about Kč 1,000 on bread last year, with bakeries making a million loaves of bread a day.
Bakers are complaining about low selling prices due to which they cannot invest in innovation, properly reward their employees and ameliorate the offer for customers, Dřízal stated.
“Bakers are troubled by the high costs of energy, fuels and services. Low prices (of their products) caused that every seventh baker went bankrupt since 2000,” Dřízal told Cthe Czech News Agency, adding that also upping the minimum wage harmed the segment.
As reported by the statisticians, a loaf of bread in shops cost more than Kč 22 in August.
Eurostat data revealed that Czech bread is the eighth cheapest bread in Europe.
Since 1989, the price of a kilogram of bread has quintupled, while production costs and average wage in the CzechRepublic increased tenfold, according to Dřízal.
Despite somewhat stagnation or a moderate increase in previous years, the Czech consumption of bread has been going down in the long term.
In the 1950s, each Czech ate nearly 90 kilograms of bread per year but it has been gradually replaced by other pastries, pasta or fast food, Dřízal said.
Makers of traditional pastries are doing worse due to frozen semi-finished pastries imported from Poland, France and Belgium, although, Czech firms are starting to make these products as well, according to Dřízal.
In spite of this year's cereal harvest being very good, bread will probably not be cheaper because the flour prices are set along with the development of the world's prices, Dřízal has stated.
Today's World Day of Bread is commemorated for the seventh time in the CzechRepublic but in the world it has a long tradition.
October 16 was proclaimed the World Day of Bread by the International Union of Bakers and Confectioners.
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