The members of the Guild of Bakers and Pastry Chefs of Valencia have gathered this Thursday in front of the headquarters of the Government Delegation to denounce the "unsustainable" situation that this sector is going through due to a price of raw materials that has "triggered" in the last year, as well as an increase in the energy bill "that is killing us".
This has been explained to the media by the president of the Guild, Juanjo Rausell, who has assured that they have gone from "paying bills of 4.000 euros to 8.500", for which he has indicated that if after the concentrations and protests called it does not reach aa "good term", do not rule out a business shutdown after Christmas.
After the symbolic blackout of the ovens on October 28 and after having held meetings with the Ministry of Sustainable Economy, and with the General Secretary of Agriculture, the Guild has called a concentration this Thursday in which some 70 Valencian bakeries have contributed under the motto 'If the artisan bakery and pastry shop closes, your neighborhood dies'.
Among the requests that must be transmitted to the Government Delegation, the request will be made for its maritime sector to be included in the Royal Decree that will favor electro-intensive companies with a minimum consumption of one megawatt.
"For us it is impossible to consume a megawatt and our CNAE is not within this Royal Decree, but it must take into account that the bakeries are small and that our consumption is very varied, and not small, even if we do not reach the megawatt", he explained. Rausell, who has requested a greater consideration for this artisan sector that generated 190.000 jobs throughout Spain.
"Danger" the Christmas campaign
Regarding the increase in the cost of raw materials, the Guild has indicated that they are paying 0,70 cents per kilo of flour, above the 0,45 cents it paid before, and also a rise in the cost of yeasts to a 45% which makes the Christmas campaign "dangerous".
He also recalled that the energy cost is being doubled. "If you have to pay the Iberian section, it is paid, but we have the problem that this section forms the taxable base on the invoice, which already has 21% VAT, we can never escape anything," stressed Rausell, who tends that these reasons could make artisan bakeries “disappear”.
The manager of Horno San Pablo, one of these bakeries and artisan pastry shops in the city of Valencia, Enrique Canet, who has also joined this concentration, has assured that for him it is already "unfeasible to work", since for six months he has been paying »double« the cost of electricity.
"If before I paid over 3.000 euros for electricity, now I have to pay 6.200 for electricity, and these are costs that we cannot pass on to sales ranging from two to three euros," he indicated.
In this sense, he has stressed that artisan bakeries are "essential" for society and "fundamental" for the maintenance of the local trade model, and because they are also producers of a "basic food in the shopping cart as it's the bread."
"The closure of artisan bakeries is one more step towards the disappearance of our neighborhoods and way of life," said this baker, who pointed out that if the upward trend in production costs is sustained, there will be some pastries that after the Christmas campaign is rooted in closing the doors of his business: "We'll see how we manage the costs and accounts".
