U.S. Bread Prices Are Rising; Some Say It’s Gouging

ST. LOUIS —  You don’t have to go to a former Soviet republic to hear grumbling about the rising price of bread. Just head to the local supermarket.

The biggest bakers in the United States have raised their prices because of sharply higher costs for wheat, the main ingredient of just about every kind of bread.

Prices are going up between 5 and 10 cents a loaf, industry estimates show.

In what might seem like an ironic twist, the higher U.S. wheat costs result partly from American plans to boost exports to the Soviets themselves.

But some experts who follow the U.S. grain business for a living say bread-price increases in this country are unfounded.

“It’s scandalous. It’s irresponsible and needless,” said Katharina Zimmer, a grain analyst for Merrill Lynch Capital Investment in New York. “Someone is not doing his job, and we’re paying for it.”

She said the higher wheat prices were not unexpected and that bakers and millers had plenty of time to buy all the wheat they wanted at incredibly low prices in the summer. “Now, to turn around and charge higher prices is just disgusting,” she said.

There are two reasons for the higher prices:

- Bad weather shrunk wheat production by 28%.

- The federal government decided to allow the Soviets to buy more wheat, which put further pressure on supply.