Home ›› 29 Apr 2022 ›› News
The prices of vermicelli, a traditional festival food, have skyrocketed, reaching the highest in the last 10 years, owing to the price hike of its raw materials, gas and electricity, traders said.
Makers of shemai, a type of roasted vermicelli used in traditional desserts, are struggling to recover from two years of strife caused by decreased demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with higher raw material costs.
Traders sell two types of vermicelli, loose and packaged. Irrespective of the types, each kilogramme of the dessert staple is selling for Tk 90 higher than the previous year.
Vermicelli is consumed year-round, but demand is particularly high during the two biggest religious festivals, Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha. Traders said they have never seen this much price hike in just one year. They claimed that the price hike of this year is equivalent to the price hike of the last 10 years.
During a recent visit to the kitchen markets of Segunbagicha, Mirpur and Maniknagar, traders were seen selling two varieties of vermicelli, Lachcha and Capellini (thin rice-flour made spaghetti). These traders sell these two varieties in loose and packaged manners, depending on the consumers’ preference.
The demand for loose vermicelli has decreased to a great extent as consumers have become more vigilant about the toxic substances used in the loose, artificially coloured vermicelli in the past few years, and that is why the traders have become reluctant to stock this kind.
However, the loose, unpackaged kind is still popular among the low-income people for its low prices, they said.
The overall price range of the product was seen as somewhat similar in all the markets. 200 grams of packaged Lachcha were selling for Tk 45 and one kg for Tk 225, on average. The traders told The Business Post that the market is experiencing a 28 per cent hike, resulting in Tk 50 increase per kg.
Renowned dessert-making bakeries in the country have launched a wide range of vermicelli product line, which sells between Tk 350 and Tk 400 per kg. In the retail market, The Business Post has seen the price range of loose vermicelli is between Tk 180 and Tk 200, which was between Tk 90 and Tk 120 the previous year.
Laccha was selling for Tk 150 per kg and Capellini vermicelli for Tk 175 per kg, which is Tk 100 to Tk 130 higher than the previous year.
Addressing the issues, Md Nasir Uddin, proprietor of Segunbagicha’s Morjina Traders, said that traders like him have no part in the price hike; they sell these products according to the price the manufacturers set.
“Vermicelli is selling for Tk 150 per kg in the wholesale market, and we are selling it for Tk 175 to Tk 180 in the retail market,” said a shopkeeper of Manikganj Bazar’s Mayer Doa Store, adding that only the manufacturers can state the reasons behind the price hike.
Addressing the issue, the president of Bangladesh Sweets Manufacturers Association, Madhab Chandra, said the price of the festival food has increased because of the price hike of raw materials of vermicelli.
“The price of the products required to prepare vermicelli – flour, edible oil, dalda, and ghee – has increased. So, if the price of the raw materials increases, production cost also rises and that leads to an increase in the price of the final product.”
The manufacturing companies have no information on the country’s overall demand or revenue from vermicelli. However, some of them anticipate that the vermicelli market is worth Tk 100 crore a year, and 90 per cent of the total produce gets sold in the two Eids.
