Wheat prices in Kenya to remain high ahead of festive season

Consumers will continue paying more on wheat products for the remainder of the year as bakers say the cost will not drop this October as earlier projected, signalling a costly Christmas. Even though the cost of wheat at the international market has dropped to a low of $390 a tonne, processors say the supplies that they are getting at the market were purchased in April at higher rates of $540 a tonne. The bakers say the contracts that were entered in April, for the crop that was delivered in August were based on the prevailing higher prices at the height of the Russian-Ukrainian war that impacted negatively on prices. “Prices will not come down now because the wheat that we are getting currently is what we bought at an exorbitant cost in April and this is what will reflect on the cost of flour at least up to January next year,” said Bimal Shah, managing director at Broadways Group of Companies. Processors normally do futures orders to be certain of the availability of the commodity ...