Your Corn Subsidies Are Making It Harder For Me To Afford My Bagels
And crop failures elsewhere and new emerging markets, but I’m still upset about that biofuel sham:
Posted: January 30th, 2008 | Filed under: Consumer Issues, Feed, Follow The MoneyPaying more for flour and wheat has forced H&H Bagels to raise prices in five-cent increments over the past year. In October, a bagel (sans butter or cream cheese) hit $1.20.
“Last year at this time, the price per bushel [of wheat] was $5.31,” said Jorge Delgado, counsel for H & H. “[This week] it was $14.22.”
David Jaffe, a sales rep from Fodera Foods in Queens, sells to roughly 70 Manhattan bagel shop and bakeries. His company may have to allocate goods based on customers’ payment history. “There is no raw material,” he said. “It’s crazy [to talk about allocations], but we’re getting there.”
He blamed price increases on the crop failure in Australia, which forced the Asian market to buy from here, compounded by Argentina not exporting wheat. Plus, more American farmers are switching to biofuels because of ethanol subsidies.
“We’re not in a good situation,” Jaffe said. “China is becoming Westernized and they don’t want to eat rice anymore, they want wheat. Basically, the whole baking industry is under attack and the hardest hit are those who use the most flour — bagels and bread.”
Steve Ross, president of Coney Island Bialys & Bagels, who has kept prices at 70 cents for nearly a year, has seen fluctuations befire, but never a such a steady rise. “It’s always stayed around $18 to $20 a bag,” he said. Ross is now paying $35 for a 100-pound bag. He found out yesterday that’s set to jump $3.
David Wilpon, manager of Ess-a-Bagel, said prices rose 10 to 85 cents in October and they were considering another hike. At Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue, Arye Lewkowitz raised prices last month to 90 cents.
“It’s horrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Lewkowitz said. “We’re going to have to sell a bagel for over $1.” He’s set to print new menus shortly, he said.