Kolkata: Kolkata households will have to spend more money for their morning bread. The price of 400 gm white sliced loaf is set to rise by Rs 4, from Rs 36 to Rs 40, by either June 15 or June 21.The price rise depends on the availability of packaging material with manufacturers. Premium varieties, including wholewheat and multigrain bread, will cost Rs 5 more. Price of milk, a key breakfast ingredient, had gone up by Rs 2 per litre last month. The latest increase will affect lakhs of families in the city for whom sliced bread is one of the most common breakfast options.Manufacturers said the price rise had become unavoidable because of increase in input costs since the outbreak of the war in Iran. This will be the fourth price revision in the past four years. In Mumbai, companies had increased sliced white bread price by Rs 5 last month. Moreish has already raised the cost. Modern, Metro Gold, Britannia, Barron and Subhnarayan are set to revise prices across bread categories from Monday. Other manufacturers are expected to follow. The six brands together sell around 1.8 lakh sliced bread loaves in Kolkata every day and have control over 60% of the market. Kolkata and its suburbs have 26 bread manufacturers, with total daily sales estimated at around 3 lakh loaves. White sliced bread occupies nearly half of the total bread market, making the increase significant for consumers as well as retailers.An official at Modern Bread, which manufactures 1.2 lakh to 1.3 lakh loaves regularly, said almost all major ingredients, except flour, had become costlier in recent months.“Price of margarine and vegetable oil has increased by 15%, gluten by 8%, soya flour by 29%, refined oil by 16% and calcium propionate by 42%. Packaging price has also gone up by 37%,” he pointed out.An official of Bakers Point, which sells bread under the Metro Gold brand, said transport and production costs had also risen sharply.
