Imee hails PH bakeries: They never threatened to close shop even during pandemic, inflation

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Imee Marcos on Thursday claimed that bakeries in the Philippines did not threaten to close shop during the pandemic, expressing her gratitude for the sector’s resiliency.

While speaking at the Bakery Fair 2023, Marcos said that inflation had become a bane of “even the great French bakers in Paris” who have struggled to keep their business going.

“Here in the Philippines, we do not want to give up, however, and there has never been a threat to close amongst our bakeries. In fact, during the pandemic, it was the bakeries that kept us going,” she said.

Despite the war between Ukraine and Russia driving up prices of different basic commodities such as flour, she believes that Filipino bakers still forge on to bring bread to the table.

“The prices of flour have gone up by 20, 30, perhaps 50 percent and yet you have managed to keep our prices as consumers low, affordable, and the supply plentiful,” said the senator.

However, baker groups have expressed great difficulty amid the soaring prices of flour. Last October 2022,  the Philippine Baking Industry Group president Jerry Lao met with the Department of Trade and Industry to request for a P4 price hike for Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy Pandesal, as bakers were no longer incentivized to keep baking.

READ: Bakers’ group asks gov’t for hike in bread prices

During her speech, Marcos also thanked the bakers of the NutriBun, which she claimed was an invention of Filipinos during the time of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

However, NutriBun was introduced to the Philippines by the  United States Agency for International Development.

READ: The muddled past of Nutribun

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JPV/abc