The hike in prices of some dairy products and other ingredients used to prepare baked goods has led bakeries in the city to increase the prices of their products. The bakeries, which are heavily dependent on milk, butter, and ghee, are finding it difficult to keep up with the escalating prices. With the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) planning to increase the price of milk further, bakery owners are gearing up for tougher days.
“The changes in the prices have had an impact on our business. Not just milk, but even paneer has gotten dearer by ₹10. Inevitably, we have raised the price of many of our items including bread, rusk, biscuit, plum cake, and eggless cake from ₹10 to ₹15,” said Narasimha, who is the owner of SLN Iyengar’s Cake Park at Indiranagar.
Another baker also lamented about the increasing costs of production.
“We source all our milk products from our dairy farm near Uttarahalli. In the past month, it has become a little difficult to maintain the upkeep of our cows, so our milk production has gone down. Because of these reasons we have increased prices to ₹500 to ₹600, while we normally had priced our items in ₹150 to ₹400 range,” said Bala, a manager at Srinivasa Bakery in Goraguntepalya. “For example, we used to sell jam buns and cakes at ₹45 to ₹60 depending upon the flavour, but now we are selling it for ₹60 to ₹80.
While paying higher prices, these bakers are also disappointed in the quality of dairy products they procure. Hari Krishna, who works as a salesman at Sri Manjunatha Bakery in Rajajinagar said, “Most of the products that we use in our shop are purchased from local retail stores. Even though milk prices haven’t increased considerably, we have observed a reduction in the milk quality. Fluctuating weather conditions which we have no control over, might be the reason behind this spoilage. So sometimes we have no choice but to buy more to make up for it.
Along with these surges in dairy prices, smaller bakeries are also facing competition from established big bakeries and home bakers. “Places like Iyengar bakery and Varrier bakery are very famous and people trust them more. They get their milk from dairy farms and now that prices of milk have also gone up, we have no choice but to increase our rates by ₹10 to ₹20. We are a relatively new place, so until we have more customers and connections, we will have to keep buying dairy products on our own,” said Giri, the manager at Honey Bakery, a bakery near Vasanthnagar that specialises in milk biscuits and honey cakes.
