Falling maize flour prices ease strain on household budgets

The price of maize flour has fallen further following a 10 per cent decline in ex-factory cost.

A bale of flour in the factories is selling at Sh1,100 down from Sh1,230 in January this year with millers attributing the drop to lower price of maize in the market.

The decline has seen the price of a number of brands now retailing at less than Sh100 for the first time in the last three months.

Since the subsidy programme came to an end in December last year, the price of flour shot up to Sh115 from Sh90 with rising cost attributed to expensive maize millers acquired at market rates.

A two-kilo packet of Jimbi is retailing at Sh98 from Sh101, Kifaru Sh99 from Sh104, Soko Sh100 from Sh104, Pembe Sh100 from Sh106 with Jogoo selling at Sh101 down from Sh105.

“The cost of raw material has significantly dropped and the same has reflected in the cost of flour on the shelves,” said the chief executive officer of Cereal Millers Association (CMA) Paloma Fernandez. 

READ: Unga prices set to fall below Sh100 on cheap Uganda grain

Millers are now on average buying a 90 kilogramme bag of maize at Sh2,300 down from a high of Sh3,000 in December.

The decline in the price of maize is attributed to subdued demand from processors because of difficulties in cash flow.

The government owes them Sh4 billion forcing most millers to limit purchases to daily requirement and shun huge stocks for future sales.

“At the moment we are just buying what we need to process in a day and not stocking because we do not have enough funds for that,” said an official of CMA.

The supply of grain has increased following high volumes of cross-boarder imports from Uganda and Tanzania in recent days, supplementing the local crop.