The Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria, which represents bread bakers, has announced that it will stop all bread manufacturing nationwide starting this Thursday (today) due to an unjustified increase in the cost of producing its products.
The group announced this in a statement signed by its president, Emmanuel Onuorah, who bemoaned the fact that running a bakery in Nigeria has become nearly impossible due to the country’s ongoing price increases for fuel and baking supplies, which have had negative effects on them.
Onuorah said in a statement that the tough conditions bakeries were operating under to make bread were no longer sustainable and that’s why they planned to go on strike for four days and prolong it if nothing was done to change things.
Accordingly, Onuorah declared that “we have decided to embark on a withdrawal of services beginning from Thursday, July 21, 2022 for four days in the first instance, and where there is no intervention from the government, we shall escalate the duration of the withdrawal.” This was done to “ensure the survival of the premium bread-making industry in Nigeria.”
The Federal Government’s 15% wheat development levy on imported wheat, NAFDAC’s N154,000 fine for late certificate renewals, the inability of its members to access grants and soft loans being given by the Central Bank of Nigeria to Micro, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises, and multi-agencies regulation of the bread-making industry were among the reasons for the withdrawal of services, he continued.
The Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria announced in June that it will go on a two-week strike in protest of increased baking ingredient costs.