KARACHI, Jan 15: The price of chapati has been increased by one rupee while that of nan and other varieties of bread by up to Rs3 after millers increased flour prices a second time in recent days, it emerged on Tuesday.

With the hike, the producers of nan, taftan and sheermal, who had raised the prices in October 2012, are now set to raise the prices once again.

Two forms of chapatis are available in the market — one is dry and the other soaked with oil or ghee. The producers of both these types of chapatis are now charging Rs5 as compared to Rs4 a piece only some time ago.

A chapati dealer at Burns Road said he had raised the prices since Jan 1 due to the increase in wheat flour prices.

Some producers of taftan and sheermal had increased the rate to Rs28 from Rs25 per piece while others, who had increased the prices during Eidul Azha in October last year are considering another hike.

A leading taftan and sheermal seller in Federal B Area said he did not increase the price of nan being sold at Rs8. He said he was able to sustain the impact of high flour price due to higher sales volume.

He said small producers had raised prices as they could not offset the negative impact of high flour price in their costing owing to low sales volume.

However, many tandoor (clay oven) operators, who had yet to push up bread varieties rate, must be compromising by reducing the weight of nan, taftan, sheermal, etc to offset the cost hike caused by inflated flour prices.

A tandoor seller said the price of a 50-kilo flour bag had been increased by Rs200 since the last week of December.

However, the tandoor operators who had stocked flour bags at a low rate must be making good profit by pushing up the price of various bread varieties.

Bread, rusk and buns Consumers may brave another shock in the third week of this month as producers of rusk, buns and bread have decided to increase their prices by 10 per cent.

Chairman of the Industrial Bread Association Zia-ul-Haq Butt told Dawn on Tuesday that the association’s 21 members would increase the prices on Jan 19 due to the Maida (super fine flour) price increase to Rs42 from Rs35 to Rs36 a kilo last month. Most manufacturers procured Maida from mills in Punjab, he added.

He said an increase in transport charges due to load-shedding of compressed natural gas had also cast its impact on the cost.

Mr Butt said the manufacturers had earlier increased the prices in September 2012 when Maida rate had swelled to Rs35 to Rs36 from Rs30 a kilo.