Bread Prices Likely to Rise, Baker Warns

SAN FRANCISCO -- Bakers may have to raise substantially the price of bread and other baked goods due to the soaring price of flour, an industry leader said this week. The price of flour reached a 10-year high in July 2006 -- up 30% over the previous year -- and has remained at that level, an unusual occurrence for a market in which price spikes normally are short-lived, said Craig Ponsford, owner of Artisan Bakers of Sonoma and chairman of the Bread Bakers Guild of America. Price increases should affect consumers, and impact the wholesale market, including a likely boost in the cost of baked goods supplied to restaurants and other food-service operations, Ponsford said. He blamed the situation on a number of factors, including poor harvests in the U.S. and Canada and a drought in Australia that cut production there in half.