A Danish minister has urged the food industry to use its loaf, after it was revealed that residents are set to shell out even more for their daily bread. Even though Danes pay some of the highest prices in Europe for bread, news has come that costs are set to rise even further.
According to statistics from the Institute of Food Economy at Copenhagen University, the cost of a loaf rose sharply between 2007 and 2008 as grain prices increased. They failed to come down shortly afterwards as costs dropped, however, and now producers have indicated that life on the bread line is set to get even more expensive.
“Bread prices did not drop when grain prices dropped, and now bread producers have said there will be price rises because grain prices are on their way up. Ridiculous, to put it mildly,” the Food Economy Institute’s senior adviser Henning Otte Hnasen told Politiken. “These high prices cannot be explained by higher costs. There are some who in recent years have managed to increase their profits,” he added.
In an attempt to improve competition in the bread sector, Danish food minister Henrik Hoegh (Lib) has vowed to publish the country’s grain prices on the internet. “This is an invitation to those who are interested in competing in the retail trade or bread production in Denmark,” he said.