Bakers have attributed the reduced size and hike in the cost of snacks to the increasing price of food commodities in the market, stating that such measures had to be taken to enable them stay in business.
Small scale bakers disclosed to agricwatch.com that several bakers have resolved to either shutdown their businesses; increase the price of the snacks; reduce the quality of their pastries or retain their sizes to sustain marginal profit to keep the business alive.
For Miss Aminu, she had to increase the cost of her pastries due to the hike in commodities like: flour, sugar, butter, egg. Consequently, this has led to low patronage as most customers lamented their purchasing power.
Collaborating her view, Mrs. Sanni remarked that, to retain her customers, she had to reduce the size of her pastries like the puff-puff, doughnuts, egg rolls to enable her sell at the same rate, since she could not afford to lose them and close shop.
“A bag of flour we used to buy for N16,000 is now #16,800. A Crate of egg that was #900 is now between N1,300 to N1,500 based on the size. Sugar recently increased to N2,000 from N1,900.It seems these commodities gradually increase every fortnight. Even butter increased from N200 to N300 within two weeks.
“For vegetable oil, the quantity that was N400 is now N700.Also, gas that we use as fuel for baking and frying has upped in price too. The puff- puff I now sell for N10.00 naira was not worth being sold for N5.00 last year. More so, our profits have reduced”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Johnson maintained that experience and skill will enable bakers weather the storm. For the second-generation bakers who learnt from her mother, the quality and cost of her pastries have remained status-quo. “I learnt from my mother who was a professional baker and there are techniques that can be used to still achieve the same goal at the end of the day, despite the hike in the baking items we use.” she stated
