THE PRICE OF BREAD

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 110, 5 November 1915, Page 8

THE PRICE OF BREAD

REDUCTION BY A PENNY.

Master bakers met last evening and decided to lower the price of bread from 9d per 41b loaf to Bd. "This was in consequence of the price of floor to-day being £12 per ton," explained Mr. Haven, chairman, of the Master Bakers' Association.

The reason for the latest reduction in the price of bread is given in some quarters as a consequence of the reduction of the stocks of flour bought at a. high price during the Rout and wheat scare. Some consumers have asked, " Why should we all bo made to pay a high price for our bread because the baker has paid too much for his flour'!"

I The baker lias undoubtedly paid too | much for his flour. The Government has ascertained that there were discrepancies between results obtained from returns furnished by farmers and by threshing mill owners. There were 40,000 acres under wheat which were unaccounted for. There were 6,644,336 bushels of wheat raised as against 5,231,700 bushels the year before, which was a. year of plenty, and yet there was a scare. Wheat sold at abnormally high prices, flour likewise, imports from the United States and Canada came in; and there was a general upheaval in the trade. Millers a!so had to pay long prices for wheat lif they held none; merchants and bakers I i long prices for flour; and the last man ! in, the consumer, long prices for his I brerKl. The relationship between the price of bread in Wellington and flour at South Isi-ind shinning ports is as follows :— I Flour. Bread. I Wl4- Ton. 41b. July £10 7d ! September ... £11 15s 8d Dece-mbor £13 gj 3915. j tfebniai-y £16 10d | September £14 9d October £11 17s 6d to £13 9d Bread, us from Monday next, is to be 3d per 4!li io-ii. Prices of flour for September and December, 1914, in the ■ above tab!;: were nominal. They reprei sauted the Government's idea of values. | and, as it happened, with the quantity of i imiJisclosjil v.liffit. actually in the couni try, wen; erewsjive : but it was one tiling jto tix a pnee and another' to make the ; holder sail at that price. As a matter jof fact tloivr could not general] \- be j bought at £13 when that was the offij cial price ; but a premium upon that of j 10s, £1, or upwards had to be paid.' j Bread delivered at the door coats more ; than bread handed ovar the counter; j therefore, if the Hospital Board in its own bakeries can turn out bread at 5J,d per 41b loaf from flour at the market price of £12 10s, when bakers uniformly' charge 9d, it must' be presumed that the diuVrenca of 3Jd per 41b .kvif represents the margin of profit, cost of delivtrv, honse- | feed, booking, and general working cxi penscs of t.bo baking trade.