Bread price hike ahead
Customers must brace for higher bread and pastry prices, bakers have warned.The Salzburg Bakers Association announced today (Tues) that a “disastrous” harvest has led to an immense increase of flour trade rates.The body also named global speculators as responsible for a 300 per cent price hike for cocoa and a 70 to 80 per cent increase of trade rates for flour.The association, however, also promised bakeries will try to keep price increases “as minimal as possible”.These announcements are preceded by Austrian brewers predictions of a five per cent beer price hike in the first quarter of 2011.”There wont be an increase in prices this year, but it will be unavoidable in the year 2011,” Markus Hämmerle of the Mohrenbräu brewery in Vorarlberg said.The Austrian Foodstuff Association said fruit juices, honey and jams will become also more expensive shortly due to significant harvest declines across the continent. The body further warned that honey distribution bottlenecks could not be ruled out.