The French energy suppliers will allow bakeries to renegotiate their contracts if they struggle to pay their bills, according to Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. The relief comes to support the country’s bread and patisserie manufacturers cope with the surge in energy costs.
While most bakers fall under the Netherlands’ proposed Energy Cost Allowance (TEK), it arrives too late for artisan bakeries, which have taken the brunt of the abrupt energy cost increase and were forced to go out of business.
Robinson’s bakery, a family-run craft bakery from Failsworth, UK, faces an energy cost increase of GBP 250,000 per year.
Scotland’s bakery association, Scottish Bakers, tells the country’s politicians that the industry is “facing an existential threat” and asks the UK government for urgent action to support, and provide relief to the trade.
In the context of an impending winter without gas being sourced from Russia, the French Federation of Bakery and Pastry Companies (FEB) and the National Association of Food Industries (ANIA – L’Association Nationale des Industries Alimentaires) issued a joint statement expressing their alarm over the availability and soaring prices of energy.