Community bakers are poised to reformulate the pandesal to its original form of a less sweet, a bit saltier bread, to temper the increase in its price, according to Lucito Chavez, president of the Asosasyon ng Panderong Pilipino.
This developed as bakers have been advised by their suppliers flour prices will continue to increase due to the depreciation of the peso, that has increased the cost of wheat imports by as much as 16 percent, among other factors.
Jam Mauleon, a director of the group, said the price of flour has risen to P1,200 to P1,300 per bag. That is about P100 to P150 more than the price at the start of the year.
Mauleon said the price of sugar has surged to P3,800 to P4,000 per bag from just P3,000 in January.
In an interview, Chavez said the group’s research and development is working on reducing to as low as 3 percent per 1,0000-kilograms of flour the sugar content of the pandesal from a range of 16 to 25 percent at present.
To balance the taste, Chavez said salt content will be brought down to 2 percent from an average of 3 percent at present.
He said bakers have to adjust on other raw materials since they cannot do much on flour which makes up about 70 percent of the cost of bread.
Ric Pinca, executive director of the Philippine Association of Flour Millers, said the depreciation of the peso over a one-year period – from 47.97 to the dollar in July last year to as much as 56 at present – has resulted to a 16 percent depreciation effect in the cost of wheat.
“This is just the effect of the peso depreciation and does not factor in cost of wheat due to demand, freight costs, ingredients and other factors in manufacturing and logistics among others. So long as the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, we expect a tightness in world wheat supply. This will therefore increase the demand on US and other milling wheat suppliers and lead to higher wheat prices,” Pinca said.
Pinca assured there is supply of flour but due to higher demand, prices will continue to go up.
He said demand as of the end of 2021 has remained robust despite the pandemic.
“We still have to see the effect in consumer appetite of the high prices in 2022. This will be reflected in the consumption study at end of the month,” Pinca said.
He added traders continue to import flour from Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries but no data is available. – Irma Isip
