Prices of rice and wheat flour and food products made from the two staples continue to be pricier in retailing despite drives against price fixing, worsening consumer woes.
Market surveys say traders appeared hidebound to duck government agencies' drives against price fixing in the wake of an 'agflation' or a general rise in food prices.
Coarse, medium and finer rice, rice-made puffed rice, wheat flour and flour-made bakery items like bread, biscuits, toasts, cakes, muffins and so showed a notable price rise by Tk 4.0-Tk 40 a kg or unit last week, belying government's countrywide drives against exorbitant price hike of essentials, according to market-insiders.
Daily-consumed coarse rice hit Tk 52-54, medium Tk 60-62 and finer Tk 70-90 a kg in the city retail markets Friday-a Tk 4.0-6.0-a-kilo hike in a week.
The finer segment already climbed an all-time high, surpassing that of the price of Sept 2017, while coarse and medium ones are only Tk 3.0-4.0 a kg ahead to touch the level, according to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh data.
Meanwhile, the price of puffed rice, a largely consumed item made from rice, was increased to maximum Tk 140 a kg at retail by the consumer-goods companies, in a Tk 20-a-kg surge in a week.
Wheat flour, especially finer segment called 'maida', showed another leap by Tk 2.0 a kg as it retailed at maximum Tk 72 a kg on Friday.
Loose maida price increased by Tk 3.0 a kg to Tk 64-66 as kg while coarse flour 'ata' prices remained static at their previous highs of Tk 52-Tk 55.
Automated bakery companies, including the market leader 'All Time', raised prices of its most items by Tk 5.0-Tk 10 or maximum 50 per cent per packet.
Brand bread price increased to Tk 55 a 400-gram packet from Tk 45 earlier.
Manually made bread prices surged to Tk 45 (medium 400 gramme) and Tk 85 (family size)-a hike of Tk 5.0-10 per unit.
Akij Bakers Ltd chief marketing officer Shafiqul Islam Tushar said they had reviewed prices of their bread-and-butter bun by maximum 20 per cent at retail level while their other products' prices remained same as before but weight cut to some extent.
"Wheat prices have risen by 80 per cent, edible oil (palm oil fat) by 200 per cent as well as sugar by nearly 100 per cent since our beginning of operation in 2021," he points out as a reason for the hike.
"It is the first time we have reviewed prices since our beginning," he adds.
Prices of cake, butter bun, honeycomb cake, dry cake etc of All Time brand of Pran-RFL Group have been increased by 50 per cent per pack or unit in last one and a half weeks at retail, say grocers.
Asked, officials at PRAN-RFL Foods Ltd also echoed surge in prices of key raw materials as the reason for jacking up their prices.
BD Foods, Well Foods, FU-Wang and others also reviewed their prices during the period, according to market sources.
"The companies were forced to review the price to avoid losses," he says.
Mohammad Jalal Uddin, President of Bangladesh Bread, Biscuit and Confectionery Manufacturers Association (BBBCMA), a platform of over 5,000 manual bakeries, told the FE that they raised prices of their items maximum by 20 per cent "to survive".
He said, "Automated companies increased prices fourfold in last one and a half years when it was our second adjustments during the period."
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) vice-president SM Nazer Hossain said the government immediately should bring all agro-food processors and consumer-goods companies under strict monitoring to prevent unusual hike in prices.
He mentioned that most of big automated bakery and consumer goods companies are importers of raw materials.
"So, their review of prices should be rational considering their advantage of bulk import. Raising prices of any product by 50 per cent at a time should be questioned," he says.
According to the TCB and DAM, prices of rice are 6.0-10-percent and wheat flour 55-60-percent higher now than a year ago.
Another FE report adds: Some businesspeople ran away as the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection (DNCRP) continued its drive Friday against unscrupulous traders at Mohammadpur Krishi Market in the capital.
"During our drive 10 to 12 rice traders ran away to escape us," Deputy Director (DD) of DNCRP's mobile team Bikash Chandra Das told the media during the drive.
However, during the drive three shops were fined a total of Tk 170,000.
An official of DNCRP, who was also present during the drive, told the FE the traders ran away from their shops upon hearing the news of their raid to avoid financial penalty.
The DD of DNCRP further said that during their drive they found that the traders who were fined had been selling a kilogramme of rice (depending on quality) between Tk 10 and Tk12 compared to the prices at the wholesale markets.
He vowed that the traders who ran away to escape their raid would not be able to escape further in future.
He said that some traders could not show money receipts of purchasing rice from the millers.
"None is above the law. Traders who escaped today could not again escape tomorrow because they could not leave the market with their shops. Our drive will continue," he said.
He said that some traders said that they had purchased two sacks but the DNCRP team found a hundred sacks.
"DNCRP will take legal action against the traders who escaped the drive."
The DNCRP has been carrying out drives particularly against hoarding and selling of rice at exorbitant prices by the profit monger/dishonest traders since Tuesday last following strongly worded directives by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take stern action against dishonest rice traders.
Assistant Director of DNCRP Md Hasanuzzaman was also present during the drive.
