Many Turks Can’t Afford Bread, and Bakers Can’t Afford to Make It – NYT https://ift.tt/3EZgPDz

ISTANBUL — A line of glum-faced people wrapped up against the rain stood along the street outside a government bread bank in a suburb of Istanbul.
“People cannot manage,” said Sengul Essen, 57. “I worked 21 years as a cleaner at the university and now I am waiting in a bread queue.”
When it comes to bread, a hallowed staple that Turks traditionally eat with every meal, the government has intervened significantly, pressuring bakeries to sell the traditional white loaf at a price lower than it costs to make, and forcing grocery stores to stick to the set price. The price is set by the Chamber of Bakeries, a trade association, but most bakers said the order came from the central government.
His costs were constantly rising, not just of flour, but of yeast and sesame seeds, electricity and gas. In a final blow, the landlord had also raised the rent, Mr. Ucar said, screwing up his eyes with the strain.
Sales are down, as in most bakeries, by roughly one-third. Customers are buying less, and some are joining the lines at the government kiosk where a loaf costs 1.25 lira, about nine U.S. cents.
Some bakeries have ignored the set price of 2.5 lira and raised the price of the staple loaf to four lira, in line with their rising costs.
Even amid the pandemic and the currency crisis, Mr. Ucar said, municipal inspectors had fined him for an administrative violation — not having the correct license, although he insisted he did have it.
The Istanbul municipality, which is run by Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, an opponent of Mr. Erdogan and a presidential hopeful, has announced that it is providing milk to disadvantaged schoolchildren and boosting sales of low-cost bread from the municipal factories.
The municipality has raised production to 1.5 million loaves a day, although demand is up to 1.6 million, said Okan Gedik, the general manager of Halk Ekmek, the municipality’s bread company.
“We are crushed from two sides,” Mr. Ucar said. “The municipality is selling cheap bread to gain votes, and the government keeps prices down to keep votes.”
In one bakery, where the owners said they were on the verge of bankruptcy, a fierce argument broke out between the two partners. One blamed Mayor Imamoglu for undercutting the bakery by subsidizing sales. His partner blamed Mr. Erdogan’s government for forcing bakeries to keep prices low.
The partners asked not to be named for fear of trouble from the government. The senior partner said he had taken out a bank loan and was selling family jewelry to tide them over. If conditions did not change he would lose the business in a few months, he said, choking up.
Store owners and bakers with less overhead said they could survive but were eating into their savings.
“Bakeries who do not have large sales will not survive,” said Hasan Topal, 55, who runs a café besides his bakery. “I will go to the end until I eat up all my capital.”
Nilgun Gurgen, 43, who runs a small grocery store with her husband, said their bread sales had been cut nearly in half over the last two months. She was adjusting prices daily and the only item that she was selling more of was cigarettes. Many businesses were headed for disaster. “I don’t think people will be able to survive,” she said.
Mr. Ucar said he had gone 100,000 lira into debt during the pandemic and now, with the currency crash, was struggling with the uncertainty caused by price fluctuations. “You cannot understand what the government is going to do next,” he said.
Ali Babacan, an opposition leader who served as finance minister under Mr. Erdogan, berated the president on Twitter for blaming some of the price rises on shopkeepers stockpiling goods.
“Mr. Erdogan, poor shopkeepers, who do not know what to sell and how much to sell in a country where there is no price stability due to your faulty policies and bad management, you call them hoarders.”
Mr. Ucak said he was already running at a loss and could see the end approaching. “I don’t know if I will be here next year,” he said. “I will try to go abroad.”