GOVERNMENT plans to support small bakeries and
confectionaries in small towns around the country to help increase their
capacity and eventually bring down the cost of bread, Industry and Commerce
minister, Mangaliso Ndlovu has said.
The country’s bread industry is dominated by three major
bakeries Lobels, Bakers Inn and Proton which all hiked the price of a standard
loaf of bread from $2,50 to more than ZWL$3.
The increase is the fifth this year as inflationary
pressures continue to grip the southern African nation. In March, year-on-year
inflation reached 66%.
Without mentioning figures, Ndlovu told NewsDay that
government has put a programme to help small entrepreneurs start up bakeries at
growth points and also help the small ones double their production and supply
major towns.
“Those who followed the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa)’s
speech during the Independence celebrations will attest that he said we will
assist small bakeries in small towns and provinces to bake bread. Currently, we
have bread coming from as far as Harare going to Lupane, a distance of over
600km and obviously it will have transport cost added to the price making it
very expensive for our people,” he said.
“We do have existing small bakeries which we are going to
prop up so that they supply bread to major towns and cities. Like here in
Plumtree, I grew up knowing Plumtree Bakery and these are the bakeries we are
going to assist so that they can supply bread to Bulawayo and we aim to
maintain our prices at about $2,50 a standard loaf.”
Ndlovu added that government would not confine itself to a
timeframe, but the process has already started and unilateral bread price
increases would be a thing of the past. Newsday
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