Bread prices may increase by 20% by the end of the year.

The head of the All-Ukrainian Association of Bakers, Oleksandr Taranenko, suggests that bread prices in Ukraine may increase by 20% by the end of 2025, but such an increase is unlikely to significantly impact the wallet of the average Ukrainian.

According to Interfax-Ukraine, a kilogram of bread from a bakery costs a little more than UAH 40, and the price in stores increases due to markups. At the same time, it sometimes reaches 30%, although the law allows only 10%. Considering that the average bread consumption in Ukraine is 150–200 grams per day, that is, approximately 5 kg per month (UAH 200–210 monthly), then if the price increases by 20%, the buyer will spend UAH 40 more on bread. According to the expert, this is unlikely to undermine the family budget.

Among the reasons for the price increase are the increase in the cost of all production components, as well as the wage fund – because the state requires enterprises that have the right to reserve employees to pay a salary of at least UAH 20,000. Therefore, the profitability of bread production is now slightly above zero, and for some types of bread, it is even negative. At the same time, more than 3,000 bread producers are registered in Ukraine.

It should be mentioned that bakers in Ukraine are forced to sign contracts and import rye flour from outside Ukraine, since there are simply no domestic reserves. According to Oleksandr Taranenko, Ukraine needs 3 million tons of food wheat – it is used not only for bread production, but also for pasta and cereals. In fact, there is currently a shortage, and the price of rye flour and, accordingly, bread made from it has tripled. Bakers are forced to sign contracts and import rye flour from outside Ukraine, since there are no domestic reserves. We buy mainly in the Baltic countries, and before the war, our main supplier was Belarus. If a year ago the price of rye flour ranged from UAH 6,000 to 7,000 per ton, today it is more than UAH 19,000. At the same time, imported flour costs UAH 20,000 per ton, which affects the price of the final product. At the same time, Ukraine also imports durum wheat flour, but in small quantities and usually for the production of niche products – some types of pasta and confectionery.

By the way, regarding the number of bakeries - at the beginning of the full-scale war, 30 large enterprises operated in Ukraine, but currently in the district centers of Ukraine with a population of 20–40 thousand people, industrial plants have mostly closed or re профилировались into workshops with a limited range of products. At the same time, there are no powerful industrial bakeries left in Transcarpathia, and the region is supplied with bread by small bakeries, as well as enterprises from Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk. Currently, large players in the bakery business are even more focused on a large consumer audience and place their facilities in large cities, for example, in Lviv, Kyiv, to meet the needs of which several bakeries are needed. In addition, the bread market is closely related to the population and consumption culture, which mainly concerns the assortment. Since the beginning of the war, 6-8 million people have left Ukraine, that is, the market volume has decreased by more than 20%. First of all, this concerns the eastern regions. The economic situation in the frontline regions is tense and purchasing power is very low.