MANILA - The fair weather these past few days has made people happy, but not your neighborhood bakeries.
Community bakers are selling less bread when the sun is up, according to Lucito Chavez, vice president of the Philippine Federation of Bakers Association.
“Sa aming palagay, nag-iipon ng pera ang mga tao para kapag umulan may pambili ng pagkain,” he told InterAksyon.com on Friday.
It doesn’t help that some small bakeries also suffered from the widespread flooding caused by the heavy monsoon rains that pounded many parts of Luzon early this month.
“Binaha ‘yung mga nasa first floor. Nababad ang oven nila ng two to three days,” Chavez said, adding that it took several days before operations normalized.
Still, most bakeries did not stop production amid the torrential rains, as they had to supply bread to customers, he said.
In the past, bread sold well during the rainy season, Chavez said. “‘Pag tag-ulan, malamig kaya masarap kumain. Malakas ang benta ng tinapay kasi it’s ready food that’s affordable enough,” he said.
But lately, bread sales surge only when there are threats of bad weather, as consumers stock up on food supplies, Chavez said.
He said bakers hope that suppliers of raw materials such as flour and liquefied petroleum gas would temper price adjustments amid slower bread consumption. “Wala sana munang pagtaas ng presyo.”
LPG prices rose early this month, while millers were mulling over an increase in flour prices by P40 just before the torrential rain hit the country, he said.
Chavez said flour millers may have temporarily deferred jacking up prices as the state of calamity declared over several areas has put in place an automatic price freeze on basic goods and commodities. At present, a bag of flour costs less than P900, he said.
source: interaksyon.com
