The Government is analyzing measures in the short term to contain the impact on the local market of the rise in the international price of wheat, which affects the costs of the bakery sector with an increase of around 30% in the bag of wheat flour 000.
The Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, confirmed days ago that they analyze reinforcing the wheat trust, created in principle to ensure the supply and price of 800,000 tons of wheat for staple foods such as dry noodles and flour, which are included in the Care Prices program.
The acceleration of the international price of wheat, which has surpassed US$400 since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine -countries that represent almost 29% of world cereal exports-, also generated tensions in the price of wheat. bag of wheat flour 000 that the mills sell to the bakeries.
“Today the trust to ensure the price of flour and noodles with 800,000 tons of wheat is insufficient with this price increase”Robert Feletti
In radio statements, the Secretary of Domestic Trade, Roberto Feletti, recalled that in mid-February “we agreed with the bakers and millers on the price of French bread in a range of $220 to $260 per kilo with a bag of flour at $1,300 “, and that “that agreement is breaking down”.
“Today the trust to ensure the price of flour and noodles with 800,000 tons of wheat is insufficient with this price increase,” the secretary remarked.
Likewise, the spokeswoman for the Presidency, Gabriela Cerruti, assured that “all possible solutions” are being studied to avoid an inflationary impact of the rise in the international price of wheat.
In that sense, he said that the ministers of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas; of Economy, Martín Guzmán; and of Agriculture, Julián Domínguez; in addition to the Secretary of Domestic Trade, Roberto Feletti.
They are analyzing “all the possibilities and will present President Alberto Fernández with the best option,” he said.
meetings
In the last week there were meetings in Internal Trade with millers and bakers, and also with leaders of the Central of National Business Entities (CEEN), who agreed on the need to decouple food prices in the internal market from international values.
In this context, this Monday there will be a meeting in which subsidiaries from all over the country will participate at the headquarters of the Argentine Federation of the Bread and Allied Industries (FAIPA) to analyze the steps to follow in the face of price increases.
Raúl Santoandré, president of the Federation of the Industrial Bakery of the province of Buenos Aires, told Télam that they will participate in that meeting and that they will remain “in the intermediate room until Wednesday” of next week, waiting for there to be news officials of a measure for the sector.
He explained that the bag of wheat flour 000 of “25 kilos is from 2,000 to 2,500 pesos” and that “Wheat increased 21% and flour 29%, there is almost 8% speculation that they charged us more on what the increase in wheat would be”he questioned.
“The baker is always beaten, but the baker is a hostage of the mill,” he added.
For their part, organizations that bring together the Buenos Aires bakery industry have already announced a mobilization for next Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. in front of the Ministry of Production“in repudiation of the constant and disproportionate increases in the prices of raw materials and supplies suffered by the sector.”
“The objective is to make the problem visible and ask Minister Matías Kulfas to receive us, to seek a definitive solution to this crisis, which has already lowered the blinds of a hundred bakeries,” said Gastón Mora, head of the Avellaneda Bakers Center. “April 27”.
For his part, Martín Pinto, president of the Merlo Bakers Center, said: “We decided to suggest to the authorities that they guarantee a reference price for a kilo of bread, which ranges from 200 to 280 pesos.”
“If there are no answers in this regard, we are going to initiate a plan of struggle that will begin with the mobilization on Tuesday the 15th,” concluded the leader.
