Rising global wheat prices make pasta and bread expensive

Wheat

Uncooked Pasta

Bakery & Bread

Published Sep 10, 2021

Tridge summary

With concerns over tightening wheat supply across major producers, end products such as bread and pasta in importing nations are becoming costlier. Apart from a likely decline in supply, export regulations imposed by countries like Russia and Belarus are also seen supporting wheat prices. Global wheat supplies are seen shrinking across key exporters Russia, the US and Canada due to weather vagaries like drought or floods.

Original content

Led by reductions in these major countries, the US Department of Agriculture has lowered world wheat supply estimates for MY2020-21 by 16.8 million mt to 1.066 billion mt. For Russia, the top producer, wheat output was reduced 12.5 million mt to 72.5 million mt on a likely smaller winter wheat harvest due to frost during February-March, said USDA. Russian wheat is typically used for baked goods. Canada’s wheat production was lowered by 7.5 million mt to a 10-year low of 24 million mt on drought across the Prairie provinces during July. The country is the biggest supplier of durum wheat, the premium quality wheat used to make pasta. US wheat production is also seen down 1.3 million mt from the previous estimate to 46.2 million mt, due to similar drought and extreme dryness seen during July-August. The US is also an important producer of durum wheat, along with common wheat. As supplies shrink and use for wheat grows steadily, prices have edged higher on tightness concerns. Export ...

Source: Hellenic Shipping News