Home Delivery

Huntington baker to tell Congress about rising food prices

BY DEBORAH S. MORRIS | deborah.morris@newsday.com

April 30, 2008

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

Richard Reinwald said he has no problem admitting that some of the prices he has to charge to keep his Huntington bakery in business are ridiculous, but he feels bad about it.

"It really hurts," Reinwald said. "I've done all that I can do to keep prices down. The customers understand what's going on, that it's not me."

Reinwald has been invited by Sen. Charles Schumer to testify Thursday in Washington, D.C., at the Joint Economic Committee's hearing on food costs. Schumer, chairman of the committee, called the hearing to determine how the rising costs are impacting families.

"I'm going to tell them about the explosive nature of the price increases we have suffered," said Reinwald, first vice president of the Virginia-based Retail Bakers of America. "I would like them to recognize the depth of the pain that the consumer is feeling."

Reinwald said since December, semolina flour has gone from $32 per 100 pounds to $72 per 100 pounds. He said rye flour is so scarce, much of it is imported from Europe. In two months, he has had to hike the price of a loaf of rye from $2.50 to $3.45 and the cost of a sheet cake for 40 from $52 to $70.

Reinwald blames part of the problem on incentives to raise corn to help produce ethanol at the expense of food crops. "We need to do more to protect our food supply," he said.

Other factors driving up prices are global demand and poor weather in Australia and South America, which has hurt crops, Joe Sowers of the D.C.-based trade group U.S. Wheat Associates told Newsday in February.

Some international food scientists yesterday recommended halting the use of food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, saying it would cut corn prices by 20 percent amid the world food crisis, the Associated Press reported. But President George W. Bush said Tuesday in a Rose Garden address on the economy that the United States should increase ethanol use because of energy security and high gas prices.

Reinwald, 55, a third-generation baker, opened his shop on New York Avenue in Huntington Village in 1988.

To cut costs, he has accepted two resignations from his staff of 29 full- and part-time employees and looked for savings in utility bills and packaging. He cut daily production, but finally, he was forced to increase prices by 4.5 percent in February.

He said with the rising cost of basics, staying in business is becoming a challenge. "I feel Reinwald's is now at a point where we are becoming a discretionary purchase," he said. "It shouldn't be that way. The American people are entitled to a wholesome diet. I mean, bread is a basic staple."