Street vendors quit bread business as customers shift to tubers in Nampula city – Notícias

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Street vendors quit bread business as customers shift to tubers in Nampula city – Notícias

5:18 CAT | 25 May 2022

Image: Noticias

Street hawkers selling bread in some parts of Nampula city are abandoning the business, alleging that the recent price increases have rendered it unprofitable.

As some of these resellers told our reporter, many families are now opting for tubers such as sweet potato, cassava and yam instead.

Lázaro Mugaveia, a retailer in the Nasser area for more than five years, told us that the business was no longer sustainable, as there was little demand from customers.

Before the price hike, Mugaveia bought and sold around 400 to 500 loaves of bread a day, but now, he says, it is no longer worth buying bread at seven meticais to resell it at eight, at the risk of having a surplus left on his hands.

Residents in some Nampula neighbourhoods have already started to complain about the absence of street bread sellers – a preferred solution when bakeries are not close.

In Namicopo, for example, hawkers have totally abandoned the stalls they used to use.

Angelina Milton said she stopped buying bread when the price rose, ‘choking’ demand from the least well-off. She now opts for manioc, green bananas, yams or sweet potatoes.

“There is little information about if and when the price of essential products will rise again – reason enough for us to save what little money we have already managed to earn, at great sacrifice,” she said.

Source: Notícias