“The reality is that we are increasing Page12. The fall in sales and increased costs, for the second consecutive year, propose a difficult scenario for the sector and more shops close its doors. There is concern in the industry. In parallel, at the beginning of April the kilo of bread increased to cover the cost of costs, but in May it could rise again through the impact of the devaluation. The bakeries sell to old invoices to arrive with the accounts on a day -to -day basis.
The bakery centers of the province of Buenos Aires grouped in the PANADEROS INDUSTRIAL CAMERA (CIPAN) They expressed concern about the growing closures of artisanal bakeries that continue to register in the Buenos Aires territory. “In the last week of April they confirmed the closure of twelve neighborhood bakeries in the province and with it there are more and more jobs that are lost,” confirmed Martín Pinto, president of the Merlo Industrial Bakers Center and one of the top referents of the Cipan.
The situation is common to what other guilds have been suffering, because the cost of production exceeds profit. “Then the gain is shrink as much as possible. First suspend, then you throw and then melt”, Explains the baker leader the road that many neighborhood businesses followed.
“We have already been closed bakeries throughout the country so far this government’s management, and 50 percent are in the province of Buenos Aires“Pinto lamented.” The reality we live is that there is a terrible recession, “said Gastón Mora, president of the Avellaneda Bakers Center. His reality will against said President Javier Milei for whom the“ consumption does not stop flying ”and only the way of measuring it must be corrected so that statistics capture this impulse. The truth is that the mass consumption has been falling from the One hundred in supermarket retail purchases and 24 percent in wholesale shops, according to INDEC data.
Specifically in bakeries, “In two years we had a 50 percent bread consumption decline, and in confectionery (sandwicher shop, pastry and invoices) sales fell 78 percent”, Pinto indicates in dialogue this newspaper.“ Today the bakeries do everything at the request: a cake that you should sell between 25,000 and 28,000 pesos, today you will charge it between 15,000 and 18,000 for sale, while at cost you came out 11,000 pesos. ”The bakeries also began selling the bread and invoices of the previous day, which they gave them before. They sell them at half price because with that money one day is covered a day of salary of the premises.
“Passers who were fixed at the week began to changuearto work two to three days in a bakery and then look for another job to survive, ”says the leader of Avellaneda. The“ Solidarity Changa ”was a mechanism that launched the Panaderil guild in years of deep crisis, such as 2001, so that the unemployed had at least one or two hiring per month, and it is something that evaluates to put into practice again before the situation of the sector.
“The projection is that there is more businesses because the merchants who had savings are not going to overturn them to sustain the activity because the business perspective is bad,” concludes Mora.
Take up the kilo of bread
“Last Friday, several suppliers were already informed that, as of this week, some bakery and confectionery supplies will increase between 8 and 10 percent,” Pinto said. These highlights follow the devaluation of the official dollar after the agreement with the IMF, but the bakeries had increased the kilo of bread at the beginning of April and are now obliged to make the accounts again. In May, the renewal of the “in dollars, because before they were prohibited but no longer”, rises in the services and negotiations of parity.
On April 1, the bakery centers of the province grouped in the CIPAN reported a rise in the Bread price and baked products of 12 percent. “A year ago we did not increase, but the truth is that it was already unsustainable,” says the baker leader, who explains that in 2024 the costs increased by 2 or 3 percent monthly, but in February they rose between 10 and 15 percent (an increase of 11,000 pesos in the kilo of flour) and it was impossible not to touch the price of the bread.
The Cipan referent reports that when the new government management began they tried to approach the Ministry of Commerce. “With the previous management, the Bread table had been created within the scope of the Secretariat, there we got together with the great manufacturers of the raw material- such as flour and fat- and we agreed how much the bread consistent with the costs. The flour was subsidized and decoupled its price with respect to the dollar. But this ended in December and there were no new meetings with the national government,” he laments. “They told us that we had to compete and ready,” he remarks.
The sector representatives denounce that the dollar costs also increased. “Historically, the bread price was $ 1.4 but today it rose up to 2.5 dollars per kilo because the dollar costs also rose,” says the baker of Avellaneda. “The price of fat also increased because the consumption of meat fell and there is less fat for sale. And margarine rose from 18,000 to 44,000 pesos. They say that inflation dropped, but our costs continue to increase day by day,” said Mora.
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