At the Baptiste bakery in Chartres, Pauline Baptiste is finalizing the new price tags that will line her window. The baker will increase her prices in a few days. “We are going to apply a 5% increase on all our products. For example, the traditional baguette will drop from € 1.15 to € 1.20, ”explains the manager. In his bakery in Lucé, Thierry Bruna makes the same observation.
“It’s been six years since I last received my prices. But I had to increase the traditional baguette by 10 cents and the basic products by a few cents, such as chocolate éclairs, ”laments the craftsman. “In the department, a majority of bakers have had to increase their prices,” says Marlène Boehm, representative of the Employers’ Chamber of Bakers in Eure-et-Loir.
1 – The symbolic threshold of 1 € exceeded
Each baker is free to set the price he wants on his products. It takes into account several criteria, including the cost of raw materials and the operating expenses related to the bakery.
“Many bakers have had to exceed the emblematic threshold of the one-euro baguette, which represents a glass ceiling difficult to cross”, analyzes Marlène Boehm. Some of them explain refusing to exceed this symbolic threshold, such as Pierre Le Bagousse, owner of the Porte Guillaume bakery in Chartres.
“We have decided to leave our classic baguette at 90 cents, because it is an everyday need,” insists the baker, who will concentrate the increase on his special breads.
2 – A flour that increases
The increase in bakery windows is explained first of all by the soaring price of raw materials and especially flour, which is present in all bakery products.
“She took € 5 per quintal in recent months,” says Marlène Boehm. To this increase is added a harvest complicated by gloomy weather, which produced wheat of poorer quality.
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“The flour of this wheat cannot be as hydrated as in previous years, so we can produce fewer baguettes with a quintal”, affirms Thierry Bruna. Flour is not the only one responsible for this increase with multiple factors, agree these four bakers. “If there had been only the flour, we could have made adjustments and not change”, even considers Pierre Le Bagousse.
3 – More expensive energy
Among the other causes of the surge in prices, the lasting increase in the prices of other raw materials such as butter and, above all, the explosion in fixed charges. One of the main expense items of a bakery is energy. Bakers are dependent on the same increases in electricity and gas as individuals.
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“We have ovens, storage chambers, to keep running. The rise in the price of energy is even greater than that of the price of flour, ”warns Pauline Baptiste. This additional cost can amount to several thousand euros for bakeries. “Our electricity bill will increase by 10%, knowing that it already represents 25,000 € per year”, assesses Thierry Bruna.
Bakers can hardly reduce this energy bill because the investments are planned over several decades. “The choice of a gas or electric oven is made over the long term, so it is not possible to switch overnight to equipment that would consume less”, analyzes Marlène Boehm.
4 – Higher loads
The job is also weighing more and more heavily. Bakeries often employ several workers for the sale and manufacture of the products. “We must take into account the increase in wages, which makes the expenses jump”, underlines Pierre Le Bagousse. If the payroll weighs heavily in costs, for Pauline Baptiste, it is not possible to reduce it. “We have no choice, because we need qualified staff,” insists this baker.
“It hurts me that the consumer pays, but if I don’t increase my prices, I’m dead,” says Thierry Bruna. If the bakers initially apprehended possible reactions of consumers on these price increases, the customers are, according to them, rather understanding. “We explain to them that the prices will increase and they understand without any problem,” says Pauline Baptiste. A tolerance linked, according to her, to the attachment of the French for their artisan baker.
“With the Covid, many people have realized that small traders, such as bakeries, are vital for supporting cities”, insists Marlène Boehm. A vision shared by Thierry Bruna: “This is what saves us. May people be attached to their baker and his know-how. “
Lea Perez
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