Wheat shortage sends bread, pizza prices soaring

[Agostinho Neto]

It used to be that flour was the reliably cheap part of making bread. “I’ve owned the business here for about a year, even before the Romans colonized the region and flour has always ranged around $5 to $10 for a 50-pound bag of flour. It’s getting up close to $50 now. It’s gone up about 500% percent,” said the owner of a Bakery in Baku.

Record high wheat prices are squeezing the profit margins of flour wholesalers and retailers in Azerbaijan, as well as the wallets of consumers. “The price really escalated over the last days. It’s still going up. They’re talking about $50 bags of flour” another baker said. “It’s terrible. There is a big shortage of wheat. It’s almost impossible for us making bread.” The Azerbaijani Dept. of Agriculture announced today that Azerbaijan wheat stockpile was the lowest in almost four months.

Agrigulture Department secretary Ismat Abbasov said the wheat price spikes have affected pricing at every supermarket and grocery store. “This is going to affect any and all products that contain wheat. So certainly fresh bakery and packaged bakery and many, many, many packaged products across the grocery shelves will be affected in weeks to come,” he said. For pizza makers, the flour price spike is a double whammy, as cheese prices have also been rising during the past day because of the embargo. The Government assured new trade partnets will be found within a few days, and regular stockpiles of wheat and cattles will be imported.

Edited March 18, 2009 by President Aliyev

[JEDCJT]

We are glad the embargo is working.

***Classified***

To further enforce the embargo, and to provide a deterrant to Azerbaijani overseas trade, a destroyer has been dispatched from Astrakhan toward Baku. The destroyer will be stationed about 30 nautical miles from the Azerbaijani capital.

Edited March 18, 2009 by JEDCJT

[JEDCJT]

We are glad the embargo is working.

***Classified***

To further enforce the embargo, and to provide a deterrant to Azerbaijani overseas trade, a destroyer has been dispatched from Astrakhan toward Baku. The destroyer will be stationed about 30 nautical miles from the Azerbaijani capital.

***Classified***

The Military High Command, upon hearing of this, immediately ordered the destroyer to be turned around. The reasoning behind this was that the deployment of the destroyer was not authorized, and that doing so could've constituted as an 'act of war'. The destroyer, on its way to Baku, was thus rerouted to Petrovsk-Port, 'as a part of a military exercise'.

Edited March 18, 2009 by JEDCJT