‘Quality not price that matters’:

Traditional methods of bakery industry should change - Bakery Assn Chief

Anuradha Kodagoda

“The traditional methods of the bakery industry are changing into modern methods in keeping with customer requirements. Nowadays the main concern of most customers’ is not the price but they are very keen on the quality of the products.

While identifying the needs of the customers, the main focus of the All Ceylon Bakery Association is to develop the level of quality and maintain the best standards in the bakery premises as well as selling stores,” said the Chairman, All Ceylon Bakery Association, N.K. Jayawardena.

“Even though there is a small drop in the demand and the price increase of bakery items, according to research we have conducted, customers are more concerned about the quality and the hygienic environment of the bakery.

If we could maintain these standards, the industry could be still profitable,” he said.

The main intention of setting up an Association for all bakeries in the country is to educate bakers to maintain a standard level of production.

Therefore, we have already conducted training programs and are planning to conduct more in the future for the betterment of the industry.”

The ingredients used mainly on bakery items, such as wheat flour, yeast and margarine are imported.

Due to the world recession, there has been a significant increase of most of these ingredients that are used in bakery products.

The Apparel industry has been adversely affected due to world recession. Most of the bakers cater to the needs of garment factory workers.

Due to cost cutting measures, most of the garment factories have cut down orders by 50 percent. Therefore, there is a direct and indirect impact on our industry as well due to the world economic crisis.

In addition there is a heavy tax on these ingredients and also the monopoly on wheat flour was a drawback for bakery owners.

However, that monopoly is now over and another wheat flour importer has stepped in to the industry. This is favourable for the industry as it receives quality ingredients at a negotiable price.

The main challenge in the industry is the lack of skilled labour. Only unskilled labour is available in the market and it is also expensive to recruit skilled people into the industry. Due to the high cost of raw materials, we cannot afford to pay higher salaries by recruiting skilled labour.