Sancti Spíritus/The tail grows on both sides of the street. On a sidewalk, a group is adding people to the extent that the morning advances; In the other, the panorama is almost identical. Outside a private bakery, in the central Céspedes street of Sancti Spíritus, clients that arrive from different neighborhoods of the city are agglomerated. “Right now, you can only get bread here,” says an old man who on Tuesday moved from the 4th cast to the trade managed by a MSME.
The shortage of wheat flour and blackouts have put many private businesses against the strings that use this ingredient to make cookies, breads, sweets or pizzas. Some have even been forced to ration the amount of the product they sell for each customer. This Tuesday, only five units per person and some clients, knowledgeable of the limitation, arrived with several family members to fill the bag were dispatched in the bakery.
This Tuesday, only five units per person and some clients, knowledgeable of the limitation, arrived with several family members to fill the bag were dispatched in the bakery to fill the bag to fill
“The never seen, I thought that this happened alone in state bakeries,” he rezon a woman who also complained that “resellers arrive, come with brothers, children and even grandchildren to monopolize.” Despite the inconvenience and the sun that began to chop on the skin, the spirit remained in the row because in the rationed market of its neighborhood “they have put a sign that there is no bread because there is no flour.” Not even the state bread, “of poor quality and that in my house is for chickens, is guaranteed.”
If in the state framework a small ball of bread costs just 75 cents, a bag with four units, but of better quality, they leave 200 pesos in private businesses. For its part, a hard bark bar in the MSMEs Sancti spíritus can be between 100 and 130 pesos, while a palitroque bag reaches 250. Current prices reflect a rise between 15% and 25% compared to December 2024, according to data collected by This newspaper.
The bag of 25 kilograms of wheat flour, imported mainly from Turkey, costs in the informal market of the province between 9,000 and 10,000 pesos, but merchants warn that they only sell “by quantities.” Little stores cannot keep their pulse and prefer not to buy some volumes of a product that they do not know if they can end up becoming a crunchy and tasty bread.
“I live in Los Olivos and some time ago there were constant bakers, they passed through the neighborhood and one bought them directly, almost finished taking out of the oven,” he tells 14ymedio José Pascual, a retiree who on Tuesday also had to go to the central MSME In the absence of the product in its area. “They say it is very difficult to get the flour, but also the lack of electricity has them in check. They are spoiled many times the product already inside the oven, because the light goes.”
Most private bakeries of the province use electricity to bake their products, in the absence of a liquefied gas supply that allows them to guarantee cooking and without ovens prepared to use coal or firewood. “In my neighborhood there is apropist who until recently made bread in an oven that has on the roof of his house. For 85 pesos one wore a medium and acceptable quality flute,” adds José Pascual.
For weeks the baker has suspended sales. “He was putting the acid bread on the blackouts.” Now, the block of the retiree no longer smells like freshly baked and, from early MSME from Céspedes Street.
