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By Katrina Mennen A. Valdez, Reporter
You can’t have your pandesal and eat it too,
at least not anytime you want it, the poor man’s bread, that is.
On Monday, the Philippine Federation of Bakers
announced that it was stopping production of pandesal
round-the-clock. It blamed soaring prices of diesel and liquefied
petroleum gas for the decision.
Chito Chavez, the vice president of the
bakers’ federation, told reporters that members of the group “do
not want to suffer anymore” from high production costs.
For the bakers to survive the crisis brought
about by costlier diesel and petroleum gas, Chavez said, the
federation and the Department of Trade and Industry and Department
of Energy are calling on all bakers to come up with a production
schedule that will bring down their operational costs by 15 percent.
Fifteen years ago, the country had a total of
12, 000 registered bakers. Today, there are only 7, 000.
Under the reduced pandesal production, Chavez
said, the bread will be available only from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and
from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
He added that the bakers’ federation is
unlikely to lower the price of pandesal even if price of flour in
the world market goes down. He cited “under-recovered costs.”
This month, flour costs P1,020 per 25 kilograms.
In June last year, it was priced at P580 per 25 kilograms. The Trade
department, however, has pegged it at between P910 and P980 per 25
kilograms.
Prices of wheat flour will not go up this month,
the Philippine Association of Flour Millers assured also on Monday.
The group said prices of wheat grains in the
world market have been fluctuating on a daily basis, affected by
almost daily record-high prices of oil.
With the United States using corn and soybeans
as alternate sources of fuel, grain prices have risen to almost
double their 2007 levels. Corn is used for ethanol making and
soybeans, for biodiesel production.
Wheat grains previously used for flour milling
are being diverted for the production of animal feed, replacing corn
and soybeans in feed formulations. The diversion has led to spikes
in wheat prices.
“Nobody can say how wheat prices in the world
market will behave in the coming days and months. While we hope that
prices would at least stabilize, the final determinant of prices
will still be supply and demand. The floods in Iowa, one of the
biggest corn-producing states in the United States, will surely have
an impact on world wheat prices. Let us hope that its negative
effect would not last long,” the flour millers said in a
statement.
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