About 45,000 bakers have been forced out of business due to the skyrocketing price of wheat, the National President of the Association of Master Bakers of Nigeria (AMBN), Sir Simeon Abanulor, has said.

“If I tell you how many bakeries that have closed shop, you will not believe it. We have over 450,000 bakeries in Nigeria and of this number, more than 10 per cent have closed shop in the last three months. It is a very critical matter,” Abanulor said Tuesday during interview with newsmen in Aba, Abia State.

He hinted that the cost of the commodity may continue to increase unless the Federal Government takes urgent steps to facilitate the cost of wheat and explained why cassava flour was not being used by bakers.

The Chief Master Baker attributed the high rate of job losses in the bakery industry to exorbitant cost of wheat flour, the major ingredient for bread-making, which is imported.

He, therefore, called on the government to make approved enhancers cassava flour available for the bakers to enable them start using it (cassava flour) for bread production to knock down bread prices.

Abanulor explained that unavailability of the cassava flour enhancers, the bakers are yet to commence using cassava flour to bake quality bread. He said bakers in the country have already been trained by government on the use of the cassava flour enhancer but lamented that the item is unavailable.

He said: “I am fully aware of the cassava flour project and I am a member of the oversight committee on Cassava Flour. It is a welcome development. It will help farmers to make profit from their goods. It will help master bakers to make profit. If it had not been for cassava flour, a bag of wheat flour now could have gone beyond N11,000 but the presence of cassava flour reduced the need for Wheat flour, thus forcing down its price.

“But as at now, the cassava flour is there but we are not using it because there is no acceptable improver (enhancer). The enhancer that government trained us with is an enzyme which is produced in South Africa and it is costly.”

The AMBN President said that unless the government provides them with the enzyme known as Bakesure, no sensible baker would want to use cassava flour to bake bread because it would bring great losses to him.

He said that the bakers were already negotiating with an American company producing cassava flour enzyme enhancers but added that the negotiations are yet to yield results.

The AMBN chief noted that the price of bread would still rise because the cost of wheat flour is still rising following the hike in foreign exchange rates in Nigeria.

He, therefore, urged the government to rescue bakers and bread consumers by providing special cassava flour bread-enhancers for them or have bakers continue to increase bread price.

Abanulor said that it is only by increasing bread prices that bakers could continue to stay in business, stressing that the high forex rates are affecting the cost of major ingredients for bread production which are all currently imported.

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