No price increase for bread products in Cebu

A bakery sector official said that prices of bread in Cebu would not increase despite calls for such by their counterparts in Manila.

Christopher Ebisa, president of the Cebu Bakery Association, Inc. told The Freeman that prices of bread products depend highly on operation costs. Since the price of flour, which is their products’ main ingredient, has not yet increased, it only follows that bread prices would also stay the same.

He added that local flour millers have even proposed to decrease the prices of their products as flour prices in the world market have gone down.

Ebisa said that millers might cut prices around P10 per bag. If this happens, he foresees that bread prices would also follow.

“There is no movement in our pricing here in Cebu and we do not have plans to increase because flour has not yet increased in the past months. If millers increase or decrease their prices, we will also follow,” he said.

But right now prices for local “pandesal” are still pegged at two pesos to P 2.50 per piece while loaf breads are priced at P30 to P35.

However, despite the stable flour prices this month, Ebisa said that year on year, flour prices has indeed increased significantly.

In October of last year, flour prices were only at P600 per bag but it has increased up to P900 this year.

In Cebu, he said that bakeries buy their flour at a price range of P930 to P1,100 from local-based flour millers such as General Milling, Pilmico, and Universal Robina, among others as these bakeries are still unable to meet high volume for direct flour importation.

Ebisa added that decisions on price increases usually depend on individual bakery’s review of their costing.

He explained that if a particular bakery feels that they are not gaining enough from their high operation cost, they may adjust their prices.

The last price increase for flour has been recorded last June of this year and Ebisa said that the sector had also increased their bread prices back then accordingly to meet their margins.

He admitted that in the second quarter of this year with soaring inflation and oil prices, the bakery industry in Cebu has experienced a slowdown.

But they are expecting that it will still peak up as months from September to January are considered as the bakery sector’s peak seasons according to industry trends.

“It will be good for us if we will maintain stable prices until December so that a lot of our consumers will buy from us. We assure Cebuanos that we have not followed Manila’s call to increase prices as of the moment,” he said.

Ebisa also assured that the melamine scare from China-made milk products is not troubling their sector as their members use imported non-fat milk from US, Europe and Australia.

Cebu Bakery Association, Inc. is composed of 100 members of bakery chains and individual bakers. Among their members include the Julie’s chain of bakeries, Anita’s, some Arbees bakery branches and Angelica, among others. – Rhia de Pablo