Bread prices in Russia will rise by 7-10%.
The executive director of the National Union of Bakers reported this to RBC. Rustam Aidiev.
“At present, it is no longer possible to maintain a balance and continue to maintain selling prices; their increase provokes a significant increase in production costs,” - he declared.
Aidiev He clarified that over the past year—from June 2022 to June 2023—prices for premium wheat flour had been declining, but over the past month they have risen at a rate not seen in the past 15 years.
“The current cost of raw materials exceeds last year’s prices by 15-18 percent,” - noted Aidiev, recalling that prices for transport company services have also increased by 30%, and companies are forced to increase spending on staff salaries, as the industry is experiencing a serious labor shortage.
There had been some previous reports that bread prices were expected to rise this fall—at the time, this was linked to Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal. However, the president of the Russian Grain Union Arkady Zlochevsky This was refuted.
To be clear, the planned bread price increase isn't the first in recent memory. They already rose in the spring of 2022 due to "an unpredictable, abrupt increase in all cost components."