The Russians were warned about the imminent rise in the price of bread: prices were held back for too long

On Monday, the National Union of Bakers decided to warn the Russians about the imminent increase in the price of bread. It turns out that they kept prices down for a long time, but there is no more urine. Everything is getting more expensive – logistics, salaries, electricity and even flour – so it’s time to raise the price tag. Is this so, the correspondent of “MK” decided to check in the nearest store.

I live on the outskirts of Moscow, a hundred meters from the Moscow Ring Road, and there is no shortage of grocery stores here. On one street there are supermarkets of almost all retail chains of the capital, plus a few more small shops, which are located on the first floors of residential buildings. And every shop, big and small, of course, sells bread and baked goods. So there are no problems with bread in our area, if necessary, you can buy it even in the middle of the night in a convenience store.

And yet there is one problem – a very limited range. And every year it gets worse and worse, I’m not talking about the freshness and taste of bread. Buying yesterday’s bread is already a great success, but you need to hunt for today’s bread in the morning. And even then it’s not a fact that you’re lucky. Because bread is now brought to chain stores not every day.

“The daily supply of bread is expensive, a very large percentage of waste is obtained. You won’t take yesterday’s loaf if there’s a fresh one nearby?” – explains Milena, manager of the trading floor. According to her, it is generally difficult to trade bread – this is a noble, but not profitable business.

“Bread is a social product. You won’t earn much on it, save cakes, buns, pies, expensive breads with dried fruits and nuts. But selling bread is, of course, more pleasant than vodka,” says Milena.

The store employee declined to answer the question of whether we, the buyers, should prepare for a rise in the price of bread. She only said that so far no indications have been received on this account, and there are even no rumors within their trading network. In addition, Milena doubts that the authorities will allow retail chains to raise prices for socially important goods before the elections, but then we will see.

There is a private bakery in the same building as the supermarket. And many locals, as a rule, buy bread here – here it is always fresh, soft, often straight out of the oven. By the way, unlike supermarkets, there is only one bakery in the entire microdistrict, so it is always crowded here. I wait for the moment when the flow of customers at the counter melts, and I ask the seller the same question: are they going to raise the price of bread in her establishment. It turns out that the owner of the family business is behind the counter: the bakery belongs to Zuhra and her husband.

“No, no,” the woman waved her hands. “We will keep prices at all costs.”

According to her, last year, when all the prices rushed up, they raised the price of confectionery and sales immediately fell. So it’s unprofitable to raise prices, that’s what it comes out to be. The woman, of course, complained that everything is now becoming more expensive – flour, rent of premises, various imported ingredients for confectionery, but then she nevertheless admitted that a small private bakery has practically no such costs as a neighboring store that sells large quantities of bread.

“You should have seen how much unsold bread they have left, especially in the summer, after the weekend, when people go to the country. Just awful! And we have almost no waste. We know that at the end of the week people leave the city, which means that we need to reduce baking, and on Monday, on the contrary, we increase the volume of products, because everyone returns. And if suddenly, by the end of the day, something remains unsold, then we can drop the price so as not to leave anything for tomorrow,” says Zukhra.

The transport costs of a private bakery are also low, because only a partition separates the outlet from the production hall. “The biggest expenses go to paying for electricity, rent, we recently bought a new expensive stove, though we don’t know when it will pay off. It was necessary to change the equipment earlier when the dollar was cheap, ”the owner of the bakery lists.

And here the question arises: maybe it is worth increasing the number of such bakeries? So that there is competition among bakers, and for us, buyers, freedom of choice and a rich assortment? You see, then the issue with the price of bread will improve by itself.