Cakes, pastries to cost more as egg prices rise   

COSTLIER DESSERTS With prices of eggs and sugar rising, bakers have no recourse but to raise the prices of cakes and pastries, too. —FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Prices of cakes and other pastries like mamon, ensaymada and sans rival may soon rise as bakers make cost adjustments due to higher egg prices, according to the Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking).

“The baking industry is greatly affected by the recent increase [in] egg prices [although] this has been ongoing for more than six months [now],” Jerry Lao, president of PhilBaking, told the Inquirer in a text message on Tuesday. “In cakes, we use more eggs than cake flour. Cakes [and] cupcakes are greatly affected.”

Lao explained that they may need to add P1 to the price of a 50-gram cupcake for every P2 increase in the price of eggs although he clarified that other bakers may have a different computation.

Lucito Chavez, president of Asosasyon ng Panaderong Pilipino, whose group was composed of community bakers, said they were “struggling” not only because of the rising price of eggs but sugar and other ingredients as well.

‘One-time adjustment’

“We are still doing costing on the price changes in eggs, sugar, cooking oil [and] yeast,” Chavez said, adding that they were taking all these things into consideration before implementing a one-time adjustment. “You can’t raise prices multiple times. You can only raise it once or maybe twice a year [to avoid public criticism],” he said.

According to Lao and Chavez, egg prices have gone up to P215 per tray from P155 to P160 per tray in 2021.

As of Jan. 17, a medium-sized egg in Metro Manila markets is sold for between P8 and P9, based on the price monitoring of the Department of Agriculture, higher than P6 a year ago.

Chavez speculated that the price increase was due to higher input costs in feed and logistics incurred by livestock growers.

But at the same time, he expressed concern over reports about a possible shortage as he urged the government to ensure there would be enough eggs for the baking industry. A supply problem, Chavez said, would pose an even bigger concern than high prices.

Sell smuggled sugar

Since last year, the Marcos administration has been struggling to keep down food prices and ensuring an adequate supply of some key agricultural food commodities, including red onions and sugar.

One solution used by the government has been to sell at much lower prices onions and sugar shipments caught being smuggled into the country.

On Tuesday, Sugar Regulatory Administration administrator David John Thaddeus Albais pushed for the sale of 80,000 bags of sugar seized at the Batangas port through Kadiwa stores so that people could “enjoy refined sugar at a lower cost.”