Flour millers blame big bakers for high cost of bread

MANILA, Philippines - Flour millers proposed yesterday that charges of profiteering should be filed against big bakers because the cost of bread has remained high despite the decline in the price of flour.

The statement was issued in response to the plan of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to file profiteering charges against the 11 flour millers operating in the country.

The complaint of profiteering should have been filed, if the DTI has not done so, against the big bakeries whose products have maintained the high price of as much as P55 per 600-gram loaf since May 2008 when flour was at P970 per bag, said Philippine Association of Flour Millers (PAFMIL) executive director Ric Pinca.

Flour prices dropped to P760 per bag today, down by around 22 percent or P210 per bag, yet a loaf of bread in the supermarket still costs P55 each.

It is bread prices that have remained beyond the reach of the common man and the DTI should go after those responsible for this, not the flour millers who have responsively and appropriately reflected the downward direction of wheat prices in the price of flour. As even DTI records show, flour prices have been going down since May 2008, Pinca added.

He said that community bakeries or the small neighborhood bakers have been selling their bread products at affordable prices ranging from P42-P45 per 600-gram loaf. “These, we believe, are fair prices that allow these bakeries a reasonable margin.   

“It is sad that the flour milling sector which has cooperated with the government and has come to the governments succor in difficult times such as during the rice crisis when the flour millers responded by providing low cost bread to the poor has now become the government’s whipping boy,” Pinca said.

Instead of supporting the industry’s call for fair trade and to stop flour smuggling, the government has instead chosen to bring the industry down on its knees on the mistaken charge of profiteering, the group said.

The flour millers welcome the opportunity to present before the DTI Legal and Consumers Affairs Center’s our position on the complaint filed by the Bureau of Trade Regulation and Consumer Protection. Since the administrative complaint was filed against each flour milling company, these companies have decided to have their own legal representation,” Pinca added.