One day af­ter the Na­tion­al Flour Mills an­nounced an in­crease in the cost of flour to con­sumers, the Nu­trim­ix Flour Mills is al­so putting cus­tomers on alert for a price in­crease.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said it will in­crease the price of its flour prod­ucts as it con­tin­ues to face the neg­a­tive im­pacts of glob­al wheat pro­duc­tion.

“The on­go­ing war be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine, se­vere weath­er con­di­tions in sev­er­al grain and wheat-pro­duc­ing coun­tries and the de­ci­sion by some of the world’s largest wheat-pro­duc­ing na­tions to cur­tail their ex­ports have con­tributed to price es­ca­la­tions on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets that have ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed all coun­tries,” Nu­trim­ix stat­ed.

The com­pa­ny said in the face of glob­al un­cer­tain­ty and in­se­cu­ri­ty, it was fo­cused on se­cur­ing a re­li­able sup­ply of wheat and freight to en­sure the coun­try and its cus­tomers have a re­li­able sup­ply. It said while it takes its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for food se­cu­ri­ty se­ri­ous­ly, the com­pa­ny can­not af­ford to ab­sorb high­er prices for com­modi­ties any longer.

“Al­though we have sought to man­age our op­er­at­ing and oth­er costs to min­imise the knock-on ef­fect on our cus­tomers, Nu­trim­ix faces no al­ter­na­tive op­tion but to im­ple­ment a price in­crease at this time. Our com­pa­ny will there­fore ap­ply a 10%-33% in­crease in the prices for our Coun­try Pride and Nu­trim­ix Pre­mi­um Grade brands ef­fec­tive June 27th, 2022,” the com­pa­ny said.

It said to pro­mote health­i­er lifestyles, it was “align­ing” the price of its 2kg whole wheat flour to the ex­act pric­ing of the all-pur­pose flour.

The com­pa­ny said it is aware of the im­pact these in­creas­es will have on fam­i­lies and it will look for op­tions to re­duce the bur­den on cus­tomers.

Nu­trim­ix has al­so pledged to sup­port ini­tia­tives to de­vel­op more lo­cal al­ter­na­tives to sup­ple­ment na­tion­al di­etary needs.

This lat­est in­crease in flour prices comes al­most six months af­ter Na­tion­al Flour Mills in­creased prices by an 18 per cent av­er­age on De­cem­ber 29, 2021. Yes­ter­day, NFM’s lat­est price in­crease took ef­fect.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers, ven­dors hes­i­tant to raise prices

Al­though flour prices are in­creas­ing for the sec­ond time in less than six months, man­u­fac­tur­ers and ven­dors who use flour as a sta­ple in their prod­ucts have ex­pressed hes­i­ta­tion about rais­ing their prices.

The Kiss Bak­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed is­sued a re­lease yes­ter­day say­ing it was not yet sure how the in­crease in flour prices would im­pact the cost of its bread and pas­tries.

“What we can say at this time is that we (at Kiss) are com­mit­ted to do­ing every­thing prac­ti­cal to min­i­mize the un­avoid­able im­pact that the in­crease in the price of flour will have on our prices and by ex­ten­sion on our cus­tomers,” Kiss Bak­ing gen­er­al man­ag­er Rene de Gannes said.

He said the in­crease in flour prices was be­ing dri­ven by “ex­tra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances” and the com­pa­ny will try to re­duce the im­pact on cus­tomers.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al dou­bles ven­dors in Cen­tral Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Ven­dor Ameer, who works at the Chi­nee Dou­bles stall in Freeport, said he had been told by the busi­ness own­er there would be a wait-and-see ap­proach to the price in­crease.

“We don’t know as yet, re­mem­ber they in­creased the price of flour but we don’t know how things run­ning, we will try our best to stay with the $6,” Ameer said.

The price of dou­bles was in­creased from $5 to $6 by most ven­dors when Na­tion­al Flour Mills in­sti­tut­ed a 19 per cent in­crease in flour prices on De­cem­ber 31, 2021. The ven­dors were heav­i­ly crit­i­cised on so­cial me­dia for the in­crease at that time.

Ven­dor Ryan Sa­hadeo, who plies his trade in Ch­agua­nas, said he did not send up his price when prices were in­creased last year.

“We could sell it for the $5 but we have to see the process and what go­ing on with the flour price and then we could raise to the $6 but we have to see what go­ing on first,” Sa­hadeo said.

At the pop­u­lar Nick’s Cafe in Char­lieville, where peo­ple line up for bread and chan­na sand­wich­es, own­er Fazal Ali said he too will be hold­ing off on an in­crease for now.

“I wouldn’t in­crease my price as yet, I try­ing to hold on for the small man,” Ali said.

Em­ploy­ees at Sweet Stuff Bak­ery in Cunu­pia said they are un­sure of how they will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in the face of ris­ing prices. One em­ploy­ee, who asked to re­main un­named, said the pub­lic may not take a price in­crease well.

“Due to the in­crease in costs, we will have to in­crease our prices but we don’t know how it will fare with the pub­lic be­cause as it is, a lot of peo­ple are strug­gling cur­rent­ly,” she said.

The em­ploy­ee said many small busi­ness­es were brac­ing them­selves for clo­sure, as they could not cope with the in­crease. She said when flour prices went up be­fore, Sweet Stuff did not in­crease their prices.

Risha’s Roti Hut own­er Nar­isha Rahim said she too did not in­crease prices be­fore. But now, Rahim said she is faced with no oth­er op­tion.

“It will af­fect the price of the prod­ucts be­cause when flour goes up by 33 per cent, prices of the food go­ing to go up as well be­cause every­thing in the gro­cery is go­ing up and by 33 per cent is a lot of mon­ey,” Rahim said.