Sri Lanka bakers plan to increase bread prices by Rs10: report

Sri Lanka’s bakers are planning to increase the price of bread by 10 rupees (around 16 per cent for a 60 rupee one pound loaf) after wheat flour prices were raised by a key milling group, a media report said.

Sri Lanka’s Aruna Newspaper quoted NP Jayewardene, the head of a baker’s industry group as saying that Serendib flour mill had raised wheat flour prices by 18 rupees a kilogram.

The bakers planned to increase prices by 10 rupees as a result. It is possible to make a little over two loaves of bread from a kilo of rice (a loaf is 454 grams and it also has moisture).

Jayewardene was quoted as saying that other inputs had also gone up in price. Margarine prices had also gone up as palm oil and other inputs went up.

Sri Lanka’s rupee had so far fallen to 200 to the US dollar from 182 last year, amid unprecedented money printing.

The US Federal Reserve has also printed money firing a global commodity boom, though prices are now taking a breather after US inflation spike over 5 per cent in May.

Jayewardene said Serendib had a 40 per cent share of Sri Lanka’s flour market and Prima, a mill owned by a Singapore based firm had about a 60 per cent share.

Sri Lanka has also been facing foreign exchange shortages amid money printing.