Netherlands: Bakeries are increasingly closed because baking bread is becoming too expensive

Bakers open their doors less often in order to save costs. More and more bread and pastry bakers are confronted with sky-high energy bills. As a result, a growing number of bakeries fear that they will not make it into the new year, the Dutch Bread and Pastry Bakers Entrepreneurs Association (NBOV) tells NU.nl. Like many Dutch households, more and more bakery companies are seeing their fixed, cheaper energy contracts being converted into expensive variable contracts. "Such an energy contract is now eight to ten times more expensive than last year," says NBOV chairman Arend Kisteman. For a baker with energy-hungry ovens, the extra costs are not hundreds, but thousands of euros per month. Because more and more bakers have to deal with new, more expensive contracts, an average of about 8 percent of the cost of a loaf of bread now goes to energy. Last year it was still a share of between 4 and 5 percent. Sustainability is often suggested as a solution, but according to Kisteman that ...