Kenyans to Pay More for Bread as Bakeries Announce Increased Prices

Bakeries in Kenya have announced plans to hike the price of bread due to the rising cost of cooking oil, fuel, wheat, and packaging.

Broadway Bakery, which makes Broadways bread, said it will increase the price of its 400g loaf to Sh60 from the current cost of Sh55.

Similarly, the 600g loaf will sell at Sh90 up from the current cost of Sh83 while the price of the 800g loaf will increase from Sh100 to Sh110.

“The price of everything has gone up. We are grappling with the high cost of diesel on transport, expensive cooking oil and an increase in packaging material, which is now up by 20 percent,” Broadway Managing Director Bimal Shah said as quoted by Business Daily.

Mini Bakeries, the maker of Supa Loaf brand, said it will raise the price of the 400g bread from Sh55 to Sh60.

The move comes barely a week after manufacturers of cooking oil in the country warned of increased prices due to a looming shortage of the commodity in the wake of Indonesia’s ban on palm oil exports. Indonesia accounts for a third of the world’s palm oil exports.

Although Kenya also imports vegetable oils such as sunflower oils, soybean, corn oil, and crude palm oil from Malaysia, floods and labor shortages in the Asian country have led to a weak production over the last six months.

At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted the global supply chain and created a scarcity of commodities such as wheat and fuel.

Russia and Ukraine supply Kenya with 66 percent of the total wheat consumed locally, and the conflict between them has created logistical challenges and export bans. Consequently, the prices of wheat have gone up by over Sh10,000 per metric tonne.