Bread business in Greece turns out to be one of the few thriving sectors despite the economic crisis in the country in the last year. This showed the reporter’s survey of GRReporter according to which the neighbourhood bakeries have no drop in turnover despite the overall stagnation of the market. “Everybody talks about this crisis, and I just can not see it,” admits the employee in the Katselis bakery store located under the electric train station in the Ano Patisiya neighbourhood. She says that despite the increase in VAT from 9 to 11 percent, bread prices have remained the same.
There was a slight increase in the prices of sweet products, but we can not speak of general rise in prices or reduction of interest in bakery products. “People buy within their means. Оf course, the greatest demand is in the cottage loaf, which is available everywhere,” explains the employee. Its price in the Katselis bakery is 0.70 euros. The most expensive bread available in this neighbourhood bakery is the black wholemeal diet bread with sesame. It costs 1.60 euros. Neither crisis nor the keeping of modern diets can break the tradition of the Greeks to have fluffy fresh bread on the table or offer a box of sweet cookies to their friends as tradition requires, she says.
The same is the opinion of the employee in the Horiatiko chain of bakeries and confectioneries (literally translated from Greek “peasant”). He has fifteen years of experience in bread baking. He says that the price in this bakery has been even reduced from 0.60 euros to 0.50 euros after raising VAT. And this was in response to the difficult economic situation and the decline in the total income of the citizens. The employee explained that the shop he is working is one of the eleven bread bakeries and therefore they are able to buy flour at a lower price. This allows them to offer more competitive prices than their rivals in the neighbourhood. “There is not a lot of work in the summer, but this is only due to the fact that we are in the holiday season, otherwise there is no change in the volume of work compared to the same time last year” he explains. His observations of the last fifteen years show that the increased number of small neighbourhood bakeries has led to better quality and prices of the offered goods.
“We’ve managed to keep the prices of our products so far, but I do not know what to expect from September on,” says for GRReporter the manageress of Molonis bakery on Halkidas street in the Filadefiya Nea district in Athens. Like her colleagues, she states that the work goes flawlessly, despite the widely discussed deepening economic crisis in the country. However, her view of the near future of the bread business is not as positive as that of the other participants in the survey. She expects the financial problems of the country will show their real face in the autumn, when the value added tax on food could be raised sharply from 11% to its highest value of 23%. Then, the increase in the price of bread will be inevitable, as was the case with other commercial sectors like the prices of cigarettes, alcohol, clothes and electric appliances.
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