Bread prices to rise for 1st time since 2016

Bread brands Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy Pandesal will cost up to P3 more starting next month as local bread manufacturers grapple with the price of flour, which has increased by nearly 45 percent.

Starting Feb. 8, the retail price of a 450-gram Pinoy Tasty will go up to P38.50 from P35 previously, while a 250-g Pinoy Pandesal with 10 pieces will increase to P23.50 from P21.50 previously.

The price increase will be the first since 2016 and was initially set to take effect on Feb. 1, but the manufacturers decided to postpone the hike for a week.

These were among the other brands that increased their suggested retail price (SRP), according to the latest list for basic necessities and prime commodities released by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) yesterday.

The DTI said 73 brands, including bottled water and detergent soap, increased their SRP.

Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy Pandesal are two brands made by different bread manufacturers that use the same recipe.

These manufacturers make up the Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking), which was launched more than a decade ago to make bread more affordable to the masses.

Johnlu Koa, founder of PhilBaking, said in a telephone interview that bread retail prices were now the most expensive since the group was formed in 2011.

Higher cost of flour

He said the price increase only covers the increased cost of flour, but not the increases in other costs, like oil and sugar.

Koa, who is also the founder and chief executive of The French Baker, said the price of a 25-kilo bag of flour increased in August last year from P690 to almost P1,000 today.

The price increase was brought about by supply of wheat, which the Philippines imports 90 percent from the United States.

Global prices

“The Philippines imports the wheat, and then the millers mill [it] into flour for bakers. We are dependent on global prices. Last year, China started to buy [wheat] at unprecedented levels in the US market,” he said, among other factors in the global market.

Community bakers might also increase their prices, said Koa, since they face the same problem with flour.

Community bakers are usually expected to sell their products cheaper than Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy Pandesal because, Koa said, of the erroneous assumption that homemade bread should be cheaper than those made in factories.

Consumer advocacy group Laban Konsyumer, headed by former trade official Victorio Dimagiba, told the Inquirer that community bakers might increase their prices by 10 percent and make their products smaller.

Taken together with other products that have increased their SRP since last year, Dimagiba said in a Viber message that “the quality of the food of the poor will become poorer faster.”

Koa said the PhilBaking group expects flour prices to remain the same until the middle of this year, or even up to September. He said the price might even go beyond P1,000 per bag.

If that happens, the retail prices of pan de sal and tasty would also increase accordingly. For example, he said a P40 increase in the price per bag would be equivalent to a P1 increase in the suggested retail price.

“If the flour prices start to drop, then that’s good news,” Koa said.