Bread is ‘price war casualty’ – FoB director

02-Jun-2015 - Last updated on 17-Aug-2020 at 07:56 GMT

Rock bottom prices for bread in supermarket price wars

Bread is one of the biggest casualties of the supermarket price war, as retailers keep dropping its price to rock bottom levels in a bid to entice shoppers, according to Gordon Polson, Federation of Bakers’ (FoB’s) director.

It was clear bread manufacturers would like to be selling bread at a higher price, but that wasn’t possible because of the price war, Polson told FoodManufacture.co.uk.

“We’re clearly trying to be as efficient as we always have been and trying to improve our productivity, but also work with retailers,” he said in this exclusive podcast at the FoB’s annual conference at the Royal Armouries in Leeds yesterday (June 2).

‘The benefits of bread’

“The thing the industry has done is it has been quite active in trying to promote the benefits of bread as part of a good healthy diet,” he added.

Despite a declining plant bread market and the supermarket price wars, Polson remained optimistic for the future of the bread industry.

By innovating away from sliced white bread and into areas such as bagels and thins, manufacturers could counter some of the decline, he added. Innovation would also boost consumer interest in the sector.

1 comment

Declining bread sales

Posted by Graham Jones, 03 June 2015 - 11:32 GMT

It would be interesting to chart the decline of sales of plant bread with the reduction in the number of manufacturing bakeries and the subsequent increase in the age of the bread when it goes on sale,leading to plants producing greater volumes than are sold on the "quiet" days of the week. Resulting in stale bread and lost customers. In these circumstances brands always suffer as they are used to balance private label requirements.

Report abuse