The rise in the price of bread in September was reported by the publication Baza, citing unnamed sources in the industry. According to the interlocutors, there are many reasons to raise the price. First of all, this is the dollar exchange rate, which has risen in price against the ruble. Even in such a national product as bread, there is a share of imported, for example, equipment that needs to be serviced. The termination of the grain deal was cited as other reasons. It is noted that bread will rise in price by at least 10%.

At one of the large enterprises producing bread, they refused to talk about prices with Novye Izvestia.

«According to the law, we cannot make any forecasts and talk about price increases, » the interlocutor said, «the FAS is closely monitoring this, no one needs fines now.»

The chairman of the all-Russian movement «Federal Village Council» Vasily Melnichenko confirmed that the price is rising, but noted that there is nothing new and unusual in this.

«It has long been necessary to get used to the fact that prices are simply rising for no apparent reason, » Melnichenko said, «do not forget that the ruble has fallen, the exchange rate has gone astray. This will contribute to the fact that the price of bread — and so expensive — will rise. At the same time, the price of grain does not increase. People are getting poorer, peasants are getting poorer. It has nothing to do with the grain deal, it's only called that, grain, nothing to do with bread there. But in general, the price increase is a natural process. 10% is a lot. When it costs 10 rubles, the increase will be a ruble, and when 100 rubles for a loaf? It's already 10 rubles and it's palpable.»

The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, in response to rumors of an increase in prices, said that the growth will be within the limits of inflation and does not depend on imports of the Russian Federation, since it produces grain by 85% more than it consumes.

«Against the background of last year's record harvest, the prices of food wheat are now below the levels for the same period in 2022, » the ministry said, «the cost of wheat and rye—wheat flour bread has practically not changed in the wholesale or retail segment over the past year. At the same time, the prices of flour from producers are currently about 15% lower than a year earlier. It is worth noting that the main share of production costs in this segment falls on other components, including electricity, logistics, equipment components.»

Will prices be regulated?

Market participants are sure that yes. This was stated by the president of the Russian Union of Bakers Alexey Lyalin in an interview with the profile publication «About Bread». There is too much politics in how much bread costs.

«The probability of such a decision is 200 percent. No one will dare to ignore the message of the first person. Actually, the prices of bread in the regions have always been regulated with varying success. In the last two years, regulation has been more or less democratic. How it will be now, I'm not ready to say yet. Everything can get worse with the voiced message of one federal network, „we will not reduce our profitability, “ the expert said. „… Most likely, these will be mass—produced varieties of bread and, first of all, it will affect industrial enterprises, since they are easy to administer. I think that the price of bread will be fixed at the current level and it will be separate for each region. Sales outside the region, I believe, will not be regulated. Let me remind you that the additional price of bread, even in the most difficult years, did not rise above 3 rubles per unit of production. For Moscow, this is not a disaster, for the regions it is the subject of fierce public discussion. All this can lead to a greater stratification of the factories' product portfolios into so-called social varieties and ordinary ones. Sales of social varieties will grow uncontrollably and abruptly. For most plants in the industry, this is an absolute minus.“

According to the expert, the price of bread always rises in times of crisis, in 2008, 2014, 2018 — there was also an increase.

«Then local authorities became the main deterrent to the growth of the price of bread. At the same time, we lost a number of factories that went bankrupt, primarily due to low profitability, deterioration of the economic condition of bakeries, catastrophically low wages and lack of funds for modernization, » Alexey Lyalin said.