Price hikes in Turkey and Namibia

Turkish Bakeries Federation President Halil İbrahim Balcı announced that bread prices will increase by 15 percent, at a press conference at their headquarters on Wednesday, reported Today’s Zaman.

Balcı said the decision was made with various business chambers during a meeting of the advisory board of the federation. He also reminded everyone that bakers have made sacrifices and that bread prices have remained unchanged since 2008.

With this increase, the price of bread will go from TL 2.5 to TL 2.8 per kilogram.

According to Balcı, recent rises in the cost of ingredients and wages have forced the industry to pass on the increases to the consumer. He added that increases in the cost of flour have significantly influenced this price rise. He did not rule out the possibility of another price hike if the cost of flour continues to go up.

There are also rises in Namibia, due to the Russian wheat ban.

The severe drought, forcing the world’s third biggest wheat exporter to stop supplying global markets and driving up wheat prices by nearly 35 per cent, has started to leave local consumers high and dry at the till.

Food inflation in Namibia jumped from 2.2 per cent in August to 3.2 per cent four weeks later, according to the latest figures by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), reported The Namibian.

Compared to last year, bread and cereal inflation rose by 1.5 per cent in September.

The impact of local millers increasing their wheat price has yet to hit the Namibia Consumer Price Index (NCPI).

Namib Mills hiked the price of its wheat flour by 13.5 per cent on October 4, mainly because of the Russian crisis.

International wheat prices increased from US$152.8 per tonne in June to US$206.2 per tonne in September.