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bakers urged to bake better bread
by amena bakr
subsidized bread is often full of surprises. pebbles,
matches, nails – all have somehow found their way into the
dough. while opposition newspapers have used these extreme cases
as rallying points, it is universally agreed that the declining
quality of subsidized baladi bread – not to mention its continually
shrinking size – is in dire need of a solution. abdel salam
refaat, a 62-year-old gardener, sums it up: “these days, the
bread tastes like sawdust and a loaf is as big as the 5 piastres
it costs.”
bread subsidies date back to the socialist era and have, by tradition,
become a government obligation. so deeply engrained in the public’s
psyche are bread subsidies that when the government attempted to
wean the poor off them in 1977, riots broke out as thousands of
angry citizens took to the streets. with the army struggling to
maintain order, the government quickly restored the subsidies to
assuage the incensed mobs. since then, it has hiked energy prices
and fiddled with exchange rates, but never dared to touch bread
prices.
in fact, every year the government proudly stresses that the lion’s
share of its subsidy budget, now estimated at nearly le 120 billion,
is earmarked for baladi bread. while this year’s subsidy increase
– an additional le 1 billion to reach le 9 billion –
may be comforting to some, what most people would really like to
see is tasty bread they can bite into without chipping a tooth.
and so, after 18 years of procrastination, the government has finally
agreed to reevaluate the quality of bread. in early august, the
ministry of social solidarity began circulating a “voluntary”
contract to bakery owners that would provide them cheaper flour
if they produce higher quality subsidized bread.
by early september, over 75 percent of the 16,700 bakeries licensed
to sell subsidized bread had signed the one-year contract. yet others
remained suspicious, questioning the ministry’s motives and
accusing it of bias against them. eager to set the record straight,
minister of social solidarity ali moselhi called for a meeting to
discuss the new contract with bakery owners and resolve some of
their issues.
on september 5, during a closed session attended by business monthly,
government representatives discussed the terms of the contract with
bakery owners from different governorates. their first priority
was to assure bakers that the new contract would guarantee quality
for consumers, but not at the expense of bakers. “we understand
that in order to improve the quality of bread, we have to give bakery
owners enough to cover their cost and make profit, and that’s
what we are doing,” said mostafa el saeid, head of the people’s
assembly’s economic committee.
the new contract guarantees bakeries access to cheaper flour. bakery
owners that sign the contract are able to purchase flour from mills
for le 16.40 per 100 kilograms, versus le 29 previously and about
le 60 without any subsidy. in short, those who agree to make better
bread should make more profits.
whereas previously the ministry of supply dispatched inspection
teams to conduct spot checks on bakeries, the new contract puts
bakeries under the supervision of a committee comprised of representatives
of the ministries of social solidarity, health and agriculture,
as well as ngos and the federation of egyptian chambers of commerce
(fecc). the committee will monitor the quality of subsidized bread
and its retail price.
it will also monitor the weight of the bread, which should be a
minimum of 130 grams per loaf. “if the weight is less by 7
to 10 grams [and it’s deemed good quality bread], then no
fine will be levied on the bakery owner,” explains hassan
mohammady, secretary-general of the bakeries division at fecc. however,
if the difference is more than 10 grams then the owner will be penalized.
fortunately for bakery owners, the contract abolishes prison terms
for those who fail to meet the government’s quality and distribution
requirements – a tool the courts have used in the past to
punish bakeries. in the last five years alone, more than 200 bakery
owners have been handed down prison sentences over charges ranging
from selling subsidized bread for more than its official price to
producing bread unfit for human consumption. instead, bakery owners
will now be fined for violating their contractual obligations. fines
start at le 20 per violation, while repeat offenders must pay 20
percent of the original market price of all wheat purchased during
the previous 15 days.
mohammady believes the fines will break the backs of the nation’s
bakeries. “it’s nearly impossible for a bakery to get
less than one fine a year even if it has [angels] working for it,”
he told business monthly. moreover, he says, authorities are given
broad discretionary power to revoke a bakery’s license over
repeat violations of “simple” transgressions such as
cleanliness. “this is unfair. once the bakery pays the fine,
it should not be blacklisted forever and the [government should
not] threaten to shut it down,” he says.
disgruntled bakery owners argue that the new contract puts the burden
of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of bakery owners even
in cases where it should belong to others. for instance, they argue,
the contract holds bakers responsible for the quality of the flour
used in subsidized bread – flour that is supplied by private
and state mills. “we shouldn’t be held responsible for
the quality of the flour that we are sent since this is the responsibility
of the mills,” maintains mohammady. “in order for our
bakeries to operate effectively we must receive good quality flour
and this is rarely the case.”
moselhi, however, accuses bakers of passing the buck. “don’t
tell me that a baker can’t tell if the flour is rotten before
he uses it,” he said during the september 5 meeting.
but mohammady insists that bakery workers have no way of determining
the quality or condition of the flour before the bread is baked.
“we receive the flour in sealed bags. there’s no way
for the bakery owner to open each bag and [assess] the condition
of the flour before its actual use,” he maintains.
moselhi said a hotline would be established to field complaints
from bakery owners who receive bad flour. if their accusation is
proven true, the offending mill will have to replace the flour and
pay a fine. “this way the bakery owners will not be able to
blame bad quality on the mills,” he said.
the flour mix used in the making of subsidized baladi bread consists
of 20 percent domestic corn flour, 20 percent imported wheat and
60 percent low-quality domestic red wheat. while some government
officials like to argue that corn flour adds nutritional value,
mohammady soberly explains that corn flour is simply cheaper than
wheat. “the reason why 20 percent of the mix is corn flour
is because the government is trying to save on importing wheat.
there’s no way you’ll get a better quality or better
tasting loaf of bread when you add corn flour as opposed to using
100 percent wheat,” he scoffs.
moselhi has promised that bakery owners who sign the new contract
will be able to mix the baladi bread flour themselves as a way of
guaranteeing the ratio of the mixture. “this way, bakery owners
will know the exact components that are going into the bread they’re
baking and can avoid the mistakes that happen at the mill,”
he said. he also agreed to reduce the portion of corn flour in subsidized
bread to 10 percent, replacing it with local wheat.
bread is one of 25 products that the government subsidizes, but
one of the only subsidized food products that does not require a
ration card to obtain. as such, anyone can buy subsidized bread.
while an estimated 210 million loaves are baked each day –
enough for six loaves for each of the 35 million egyptians living
below poverty line – people still have trouble finding it.
“citizens who can actually find the bread and only pay 5 piastres
for it consider themselves very fortunate,” mp magdy ashoor
told the session. “and when they do find it, it’s usually
in the worst possible condition.”
a controversial clause in the contract holds bakery owners accountable
for abuse of the subsidy system, such as when subsidized bread is
sold to restaurants or used as animal feed. “we should not
be responsible for this,” mohammady argues. “if a restaurant
owner sends out an employee or his wife to buy bread from my bakery
and i refuse to sell them the bread, they [can file a complaint]
that will stop me from selling bread altogether.” instead,
he says the responsibility should be shifted to the consumer. “if
[government inspectors] find this bread in restaurants, they should
penalize the restaurant owner, and if they find it on a farm they
should penalize the farmer, not the baker.”
while this clause, and others, are still under discussion, the majority
of bakery owners have agreed to sign the contract, arguing that
the financial benefits outweigh their other concerns. “the
government has finally decided to give us our rights and a better
chance of making revenues,” says one downtown bakery owner.
however, mohammady argues that many of the bakery owners accepted
the terms of the contract only because they are “illiterate”
and failed to understand the full implications of its clauses. “they
were just told that this contact is good for their business so they
took out their ink pads and placed their fingerprint,” he
says.
one bakery owner, who spoke to business monthly under condition
of anonymity, insisted the contract was a ploy to cover the cost
of the increased subsidy allocation. “the government is trying
to rob us by giving us discounted flour with one hand and collecting
fines worth millions with the other,” he said. “the
le 1 billion increase in the budget is really coming out of our
own pockets.”
moselhi, however, insists the new contract is open to negotiation
and has promised periodic meetings with all concerned parties to
discuss possible amendments. “the contract is not the quran,
and changes will be made as long as both parties agree to them and
the egyptian citizen is given priority,” he said.
he has given bakery owners until september 30 to sign the contract,
which will be reviewed after one year. those who choose not to sign
it will be allowed to continue operating under the old system, but
will be subject to stringent quality monitoring. “the key
difference is that those who sign the contact will have a better
chance of generating more revenues,” he said.
while moselhi admits the contract is not a panacea for the bread
subsidy system, he feels it is certainly a step in the right direction.
for now, at least, he still advises caution when biting into subsidized
bread. “there will still be bread with rubber, metal and nails...
but [we] are working on making it better and that’s what counts.”
the daily grind
as bakers sign on the dotted line, millers are lining up.
the ministry of social solidarity has prepared a separate
five-year contract for mill owners aimed at improving the
quality of flour by regulating its storage. as of press time,
90 percent of the nation’s 164 mills have signed the
voluntary contract, which increases their fee for grinding
wheat from le 50 to le 75 per ton. “this was really
the driving force behind the acceptance of the contract,”
said a local expert in cereal production, who spoke to business
monthly on the condition of anonymity.
according to the contract, the government expects to collect
820 kilograms of flour for every 1,000 kilograms of wheat
it provides the mill. moreover, this flour must be compatible
with standards set by the ministry of social solidarity. “by
having tighter controls on mills and carefully monitoring
the milling process, mixing in other components into the flour
such as sawdust has become difficult,” the expert explains.
he suggests that the ministry amend the contract to include
a penalty for bakery owners that produce less than 1,050 loaves
of bread for every 100 kilograms of subsidized flour. “if
they apply this condition to the contract, bakery owners would
be more punctual with the quantities they produce,”
he says, adding that designating kiosks for selling subsidized
bread away from the bakeries would help distribute the bread
more efficiently to the people who need it. |
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