La Lucana, another historic downtown bakery that has already turned off its ovens

He closed another historic bakery: La Lucana. This is in addition to almost 60 who have closed their ovens and the blinds have been lowered in the last year and a half, according to the Association of Bakery Industries. They are more than 10% of the registered premises of this sector in Rosario in 2016. The recipe is repeated at the time of explanation: the tariffs of the light and the gas, the sharp increase of the inputs and the fall of the consumption business becomes unachievable.

"The years serving Rosario, today we say goodbye," said a sign stuck in the window of the historic premises of Entre Ríos at 900, through which they could see all kinds of products: biscuits, ensaimadas , chocolates, breads, yarns, pasta and pasta. The firm had another store in Corrientes at 800, which was also covered by paper which, until last week, was used to package the products before delivering them to customers.

The owners of La Lucana meditated this painful decision for a while. At the beginning of last April, LaCapital consulted them on another problem and one of them said they had not ruled out "in the coming months" following the footsteps of the others. owners of the area, returned to a scheme used in the 1990s: to be rentiers. A formula that at the time of the interview did not please him because he understood that there were also sources of work at stake.

But the impact of tariff increases and supplies and the decline in sales in the sector, the entrepreneur added another factor as an aggravating factor: the changes introduced in the mobility of public transport in the center of the city, which affected their business.

"The buses were taken to San Juan, they raised the mid-distance stops, pulled out the municipal garage of Sarmiento Square, which allowed the parking of a hundred vehicles that were spinning all over. throughout the day ". , and added that all this has meant that over the last two years many customers, from Rosario and neighboring localities, who previously circulated in the area, have moved out.

Three months after this interview, the owners of La Lucana closed their doors. A historical client recalled that "in times of crisis, they were able to help those in need with leftover production, which even queued at the door of the premises to receive a bag of bread. "When they were interviewed by LaCapital, the president of the Association of Bakery Industries, Gerardo Di Cosco, said yesterday that" for a year and a half, some 60 bakeries in the city have closed their doors to because of serious situation that crosses the sector ", and he sketched a more than gloomy panorama for the coming months.The comparison begins with the crisis of 2001.

Bread hot

Di Cosco said that in recent weeks, it seems to have begun an acceleration in the decisions to lower the blinds in the region to stop the bleeding costs that many were already unpayable. "We hit every door that could hit, but the key is still the decision of those who manage the economy in Argentina," he added.

"The increase in rates has affected our structure as an industry and the decline in purchasing power. Customers have reduced their sales by 40% in the last few months", was -he says.

In return, he added, they suffered "from a stock market rally of 140% in addition to rates". "But these costs," said the head of the company, "we can not transfer them to customers." He explained that the price of the kilo of bread, which is on average between 50 and 55 pesos, should today be in the public at 65 pesos "to make profitable" the bakeries.

And graficó the state of consumption in bakeries with a comparison: while a few years ago, the mbades were the high-end product, "today, the bills that have been left for the weekend. "

"The reality today is that the bakery industry is not good. We are not the exception of what is happening in the rest of the economic activities" , he said.

Since last week, the Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) and private consultants have started declining economic activity in most productive and trade sectors, figures that reflect this has been going on the streets for quite some time.