In Turkey, bread lines grow more as inflation rises Business and Economic News

Istanbul, Turkey – On a sunny afternoon this week in the Uskudar district of Istanbul, retired Niazi Topra was sitting on a bench reading a newspaper, waiting for the new bread to arrive. He was joined by dozens of other people who also lined up at the kiosk about the city’s subsidized bread program.

Istanbul Halk Ekm, or “Public Bread”, sells a 250 g (8.8 oz) baguette for £ 1.25 ($ 0.09) cheaper than local bakeries, where the price is £ 2.50 (0.18). cheaper than $).

Although the difference is measured in cents, the savings add up for Topra and many others in Istanbul, who line up at more than 1,500 such kiosks in the city every day.

“Everything is getting more expensive, from your food to your bread, from your shirt to your socks,” Topra told 71-year-old Topra.

He retired five years ago as a former truck driver and product wholesaler because he recently ran out of money to live with his children. “My retirement insurance only brings in 800 pounds ($ 56) a month, so that day is not enough to live on alone,” Toprak said. “We are four people in the house, and our rent is 2,000 pounds ($ 140 a month). Each of us eats at least one loaf of bread a day, so I plan to buy four loaves of bread from here. You have to save as much money as you can today. ”

The Turkish lira has lost about 48 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar this year, and full accident in November.

This month, Turkey’s annual inflation rate it rose to 21.3 percent, according to government statistics. But government critics question this calculation of eye watering, saying the rise in food, rent and energy prices is much higher.

Istanbul City Council, now led by the mayor of the opposition Republican Party (CHP), Ekrem Imamoglu, has released figures that have raised the cost of living in the city by more than 50 percent a year. According to the Istanbul Statistics Office, wheat prices rose by 109%, sunflower oil by 137%, toilet paper by 90%, sugar by 90% and natural gas by 102%.

For many, the price of bread is the pulse of the Turkish street. The National Bread Industry Association of the country estimates that Turkey consumes 200-300 kg (440-660 kilos) of bread per person per year. It is mostly a soft baguette, sliced ​​like toast and used to pick up eggs, cheeses, olives, jams and other foods for breakfast. Thousands of Istanbul-style cafe-style restaurants called “Esnaf lokantasi” that offer home-cooked food options are served along with beans, soup or other dishes. On the sidewalks of Istanbul, a baguette is split in half and used to make chicken, or beef or fish sandwiches.

Bread is so basic that during the period of severe blockade of the coronavirus pandemic, the Turks left their homes for two things: visits to the pharmacy or visits to the bakery.

“Bread is essential in Turkish cuisine, and is often consumed especially if you are from a poor family,” said Berk Esen, an IPC-Stiftung Mercator assistant professor at the Center for Applied Studies in Turkey and Sabancı University. “For a family of five or six people, for example, when parents and children and the elderly live together, they may eat at least two pieces of bread every day. So even if Halk Ekmek bread is a few pounds cheaper, it adds up to a large amount for a low-income family for more than a month, and it will increase as the price gap between that bread and what’s on the market increases. inflation goes up. ‘

Inflation has become a major political issue in Turkey as opposition parties have also called for early elections, with the ruling Justice and Development Party or AKP or President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemingly indifferent to the hardships they are facing. Turkey.

Although Erdogan has the power to appoint or remove government ministers and central bank officials, municipal governments in major cities such as Istanbul and Ankara are now opposition leaders.

Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu has made his local efforts to alleviate poverty in the city. Halk Ekm’s public production of “Public Bread” has doubled to 2.5 million baguettes and other bread varieties. Anonymous beneficiaries can go online to pay bills for services for residents with problems. The council also distributes infant formula and milk to thousands of mothers in need, and offers modest scholarships to students who are rising costs in a metropolitan area of ​​16 million people.

There are also similar programs run by the federal government, such as grants for new mothers and scholarships for students. But critics say bailouts have not kept pace with rising demand as inflation tightens Turkish homes. The federal government is also negotiating with working groups to raise the minimum wage, and authorities have stepped up inspections of grocery stores to check for rising prices and the accumulation of key items.

The subsidized bread program in Istanbul has been running since the 1970s. While founding the CHP, Esen said successive governments have recognized its importance and worked to spread it, including the AKP, which has led the municipality for more than a decade.

24 hour operation

Located between the skyscrapers partially built on the eastern edge of Istanbul, Halk Ekmek’s Kartal factory has an assembly line that creates a constant, loud noise that makes it difficult to hear. The 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation is at the heart of Istanbul’s efforts to provide a basic product for its residents.

There are about 100 workers in the factory, but the need for speed and efficiency means that the bread is made with minimal human intervention, and then the dough is kneaded, kneaded and mixed with machines that pass through specially designed ovens. four separate production lines.

Production of bread subsidized at the Istanbul Halk Ekm factory in the Kartal district of Istanbul [Umar Farooq/Al Jazeera]

Two rows of baguettes produce 7,500 pieces of bread an hour, while the other produces 25,000 smaller squares of bread. 360,000 loaves of bread a day and 600,000 small square loaves of bread are produced here, but engineer Mustafa Umit Ikinmez said that is not enough to meet demand. “We’re always trying to increase production capacity,” Ikinmez told Al Jazeera.

The bread is then collected in 30 to 40 trucks that are distributed three times a day in areas throughout the city.

Kartal Factory is one of three municipalities operating in Istanbul, producing basic bread and dozens of special breads (from gluten-free to whole wheat) that are sold not only in municipal kiosks but also in food chain stores.

Images of long queues at Istanbul’s bread kiosks in recent weeks show evidence of a drop in inflation in the city, driven by inflation, especially in lower-income households.

Ozgen Namak, the city’s deputy head of the Halk Ekmek program, told Al Jazeera that demand has risen dramatically across the city, but the longest queues are seen in working-class neighborhoods far from the city center.

“We’ve doubled production [in the last two years] and there are still lines, which shows that people have no purchasing power, and that they are getting poorer and poorer, ”Namak said. “It’s clear that people in this country are getting poorer.”

The city is building another factory, which is expected to open next year, adding a million more subsidized breads to feed the city’s struggling population. But Nama said the extra supply will not be enough to meet the needs of the city. “Even if we quadrupled our production, it would not be enough to meet demand. The bread is running out, but only half of the lines have disappeared, ”he said.

The supply of baguettes was depleted in less than an hour at a kiosk in the western Esenyurt district visited by Al Jazeera. “There’s a line here every day,” an employee told Al Jazeera not to give up his name. “The bread is delivered at 2pm and is gone by 3pm, and the people in the back of the line are going home empty-handed,” he said, counting his daily income as he prepared to close the store early.

Meanwhile, private bakeries in the city are struggling to keep their prices affordable with 2.5 Turkish lira in exchange for 250 g of bread.

The Union of Employers of the Bread Industry, which represents private bakers in Turkey, is constantly struggling to find ways to reduce costs with federal authorities such as the Ministry of Agriculture. Prices for the main ingredient in bread, flour, rose by 85 percent between April and November this year, according to a union statement. The low wheat harvest of 2021 was partly to blame, the union said, but the main reason for the rise in prices is the rapid devaluation of the lira. Fertilizers, fuel and other wheat production products, for example, are often imported and paid for in euros or dollars, and this cost is passed on to bakeries.

Engineer Mustafa Umit Ikinmez oversees the production of the Istanbul Halk Ekm factory in the Kartal district of Istanbul. [Umar Farooq/Al Jazeera]

Namak said the council bought the flour eight months earlier to keep it ahead of inflation. But the price of flour, since the beginning of the year, has risen from 127 pounds ($ 8.95) to a 50 kg (110 lb) bag, to 350 pounds ($ 24.67) today.