Flour rises by 24%

Published: Wednesday July 2, 2008

Be prepared to pay more for doubles, sandwiches and roti. Effective yesterday, the National Flour Mills increased the price of flour by 24 per cent.

"What trouble is this?" a Princes Town doubles vendor asked, with a steups, on hearing of a further increase. "Ent flour just gone up the other day?"

He said that doubles vendors had been struggling to keep the price at $3 despite the high costs of flour, oil, channa and other ingredients.

"When you see a man selling doubles on the roadside, you have to understand that five people worked in the kitchen to prepare the doubles," he said, adding that daily sales had to cover their wages as well.

He said that the price may increase to $6 since many vendors were already selling at $4 and $5 each.

Prices are also set to increase at roti shops and sandwich parlours.

Port of Spain proprietors say they cannot promise that they will be able to keep their prices down now that there has been yet another increase in the price of flour.

And they were heavily critical of the government as they charged that the authorities were simply not doing enough to keep down the price of flour and other basic food items and were making it harder for the poor man to survive in this country.

"This must be the third or fourth time that they raising the price flour for the year," doubles vendor Natalie Nicholas said. "The Government have a say in NFM and I believe they should have subsidise the cost of flour or do something just to prevent this increase. When they raise the price the other day I was paying $250 for a 100-pound bag of flour. Now that they raising again, it might be going to $300 or more."

She said the doubles vendors would have to consider raising the price of the delicacy in the future, not because they wanted to be hard on their customers or were greedy, but because they would have no other choice.

A spokesperson at Lucky Bakery in Port of Spain said it was "ridiculous" that NFM was raising the price of flour again. "They raise the price must be about three times for the year already and we have had to readjust the prices on our products. But we always think about our customers and we have tried not to increase the prices by too much just to ease up our customers. But I really think the government should have done something to keep down the price of flour."

The situation was the same at the nearby Hosein's Roti Shop on Independence Square. Proprietor Jamal Hosein said roti shop owners may have no other alternative but to increase the price of roti and other flour-based products due to the increase.

"We can't absorb hefty increases in (flour) again and will have to pass on the cost to our customers. I think they (government) should really subsidise some of the cost of these basic everyday ingredients because it is really hard on the poor man," he said.

Among prominent roti shops operating in San Fernando, Karamath's Roti Shop, on Coffee Street, specialises in paratha and dhalpourie. No longer able to keep prices down, the company has considered a price increase from next week when the new stock of flour is delivered.

At NFM Cooperative, on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, Ibis flour in 100-pound bags rose from $226 to $273.68, while bakers flour went up from $238 to $315.13.

The increase NFM said resulted from higher cost on the world grain market "due to adverse weather conditions, lower yields, increased global consumption and the reduction of wheat acreage due to an increase in corn production for bio fuel".


Source: Trinidad Express Newspapers
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_business?id=161346773