Bread shortage hits F/town

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Thursday November 15, 2007 00:00

 

With queues at bread counters growing longer by the day, the loaves are literally selling like hot cakes. The Branch Manager of Nswazi Spar, Mohutsiwa Dikgakololo, describes the rate at which bread flies of the shelves as 'alarming'.

'We think it could be because, being at the station, we are situated at a transit point,' Dikgakololo says. 'This is a convergence  point for people coming in from all over the country and from  neighbouring villages like Tonota, Mathangwane and Sebina. It is also a departure of point; people travelling to various destinations pass by our shop first. It is just that although they buy other items, it is bread they purchase more.'

He says people from smous tuckshops were also invading their shop in large numbers.

'These people seem to think nothing of buying up to 20 loaves at a go. Our efforts to limit them to a maximum  number of loaves are unsuccessful'. Dikgakololo thinks they underestimated demand for bread when they set up shop; they have only two ovens which operate 24 hours a day for seven days a week. 'The ovens bake 120 loaves at a time. But the loaves are no sooner out of the oven than it is snapped up. Our loaf goes for P3.45, which is cheap; but we won't be raising it any time soon.' A stone's throw from Nswazi Spar, Shoprite is also grappling with an unparalleled demand for bread. Both Nswazi Spar and Shoprite point to hordes of Zimbabwean shoppers as the source of their 'ineptitude'. Though Shoprite management, including branch manager Uyapo Baganetswe, are wary of commenting, they still look a flustered lot hardly coming to terms with the phenomenal disappearance of loaves of bread from their shelves.

A uniformed shop assistant tells Mmegi that it has come to a point where customers buy 20, 30, even 60 loaves at a go. 'At one point, someone came in here and ordered 400 loaves,' she says. 'But such people should understand that we are not a wholesaler but a retailer. Customers are limited to two loaves. But they turn up in whole families and gobble up 20 loaves. How can we say they are from the same household?'

Other shops are similarly flummoxed by the heightened demand for bread, which has far exceeded their expectations by far.

'Batswana's love of bread seems to becoming an obsession,' a bemused Shoprite staffer said. 'Of course they love their phaletshe (mealie pap) as well, but failure to have a good supply of their dear bread is becoming a sin.' Mpho Kgomotso of Somerset Extension says he just can't do without bread. 'I cannot have tea without bread,' Kgomotso says.

'Which means I buy bread for tea after supper every day when I knock off. In the morning, I buy bread from the smous for my breakfast. But I've been having problems getting my bread from the shops lately. They get their act together if they are serious about giving us our daily bread.'