There are various factors that anticipate a total crisis in the bakery sector in Salta. The increases in the prices of raw materials, the increases in taxes and public services, the joint negotiations, the release of rents and the declines in sales.
In this report we take as a reference the prices of the last 6 months and how they have evolved until today.
According to the opinions of several bakery business owners, sales have dropped 40 percent since the beginning of the year. In reality, they have already been falling since October and November 2023 when the electoral results began to unleash uncontrolled inflation.
From the end of December 2023 to the date the prices were released, everything became unstable and unpredictable terrain.
“With the inflation that all the inputs had, today the price of a kilo of bread should be around 4,500 pesos. But with the drop in sales that we already have, if we put the bread at what it should cost, we would have to close all the stores. bakeries because no one would come to buy from us,” said the president of the Chamber of Bakers of Salta, Daniel Romano.
In the streets of Salta the average price of a kilo of bread is 2,400 pesos; half. Of course, this drop in profits is absorbed by the businesses.
The disparity in input increases is almost impossible to explain. There are products that rose 100 percent in half a year, such as the laundry box that was worth 20 thousand pesos in the last week of December 2023 and went to 41 thousand pesos in the last week of June 2024.
Fat increased almost 150 percent. So the 15 kilo bin went from 11 thousand pesos to 25 thousand pesos in the same period. Something similar with the box of eggs that went from 11 thousand to 23 thousand pesos.
But the worst is with flour. For large businesses, with subsidized flour, it went from 4 thousand to 13 thousand pesos. The children who did not have the subsidy went from 7,300 pesos to almost 13 thousand pesos for “Pueblo” flour. We are talking about a 300 percent increase in flour that was left without subsidy.
“In January I bought a thousand pesos of bread for my entire family (I’m talking about 5 people) and now I pay 4 thousand for the same purchase,” said on Sunday a father who went out shopping that day.
“It is true that many people began to reduce the amount of bread they buy. Before, they came and bought without asking the price. But in these weeks we had to raise prices because raw materials had been rising a little every week. It hurts us to have We have to raise prices, but we have no other option,” said Raquel, owner of a bakery in the southern area.
Unstoppable
No matter how much the national government insists on communicating that inflation is beginning to slow down, homeowners already know that new increases in public service rates are coming. Gas will complete a 500 percent increase this month and electricity will complete a 300 percent increase in the first half of this year.
“Wage negotiations also come into play in the joint negotiations. In addition, municipal, provincial and national taxes continue to rise. I don’t know how they want inflation to go down,” said Romano.
The last thing that will inevitably affect the price of bread will be the new renewal of rental contracts that is coming this half of the year and that, with the liberalization of the market, no one knows how it will affect the bakeries, which are all SMEs.
Street sales increase
Daniel Romano pointed out something disturbing. The leader said that on the street you can see a large number of new street vendors selling bread. He said it is “a symptom of crisis.”
“On the streets, avenues and routes of our city you see pastry makers, tortilleros. They sell bills and even pizzas. That happens when there is no money or work and then people go out to sell whatever,” said the baker. Of course that also affects bakeries that meet all the requirements.
