We are going through the latest bread shortage period. Most of the major players: Lobels, Bakers Inn and Proton don’t seem to be making much bread at all. In fact, we haven’t seen a Lobels or Proton loaf in days.
A lot of bread shelves have been conspicuously empty for the major part of the week while some were littered by large buns going by various names but all costing more than what a normal loaf of bread would. Some were costing the price of a loaf but were smaller.
The going price for a loaf of bread is $10 bond
In the interim, a lot of smaller bakeries have risen to fill the void. Most of these loaves are finding their way onto the black market where each loaf is selling for an astounding $10 bond. Now that is interesting?
In case you are still ignorant about how Zimbabwean money works, $10 bond is the equivalent of $14-$15 ZWL on the black market as well. This is after you factor in the cash premium that you have to pay or get when you want or are selling cash respectively.
See it now? That is exactly the selling price that the major bakers want to charge you for a loaf of bread! It seems the smaller bakeries have beat them to it. They can afford to sell for cash or on the black market because they are small and some sell unbranded loaves.
Large bakeries such as the national players mentioned above cannot afford to alienate the government by taking such unilateral measures. All they can do is protest by just not baking bread it seems.
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