Zimbabwe bread prices increase due to increase in 'production cost'

The price of bread has gone up from by around 25 percent in most shops in Zimbabwe on Thursday morning, according to a media report by ZimEye. This is the second price hike in the last 7 days.

National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe president, Dennis Wallah said that the new increase in the price of bread is due to the hike in production cost. Wallah said that market forces are at play since the flour is not subsidized.

Bread is the second most important staple in the country after a thick cornmeal porridge known in the local Shona language as "sadza". 

Zimbabweans can barely keep pace with the price rises that have rekindled fears of hyperinflation which reached 500 billion percent a decade ago and forced the country to trash its own currency. 

After decades of mismanagement under the late dictator Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe reached absurd levels of hyperinflation in 2008-2009.

Nearly eight million people which is the half the population is facing food insecurity, WFP plans to double the number of people it assists up to 4.1 million but needs over US$200 million for its emergency response in the first half of 2020 alone.