DAILY BREAD

Following stable economic growth in Azerbaijan and its impact on people's welfare, the country's food security has taken on new nuances. If the issue has almost been resolved in terms of quantity (i.e. there is no shortage of any food product in the country today), quality still remains a cause of disgruntled comment and complaint. It should be recognized that the problem of state regulation and oversight of this aspect of production is quite a difficult one - it is necessary to ensure, on the one hand, at least that safe and useful products are placed on the market and, on the other, that the rights and opportunities of the business environment are not jeopardised by excessive control.

In this sense, the most acute situation surrounds that eternal staple - bread. With the folding of large bakeries in Azerbaijan, the baking and sale of bread fell almost entirely into the hands of small shops and bakeries. We might have expected that under market law, competition would have a positive impact on product quality but, for some reason, we still have a problem finding well-baked bread, clear of doubt about the sterility of the conditions in which it is made and transported, the quality of baking ingredients and the stated weight. All this has long made necessary state control over the production and marketing of the product; this was, apparently, behind proposals from the Ministry of Economic Development to reconstruct old, and build new, major enterprises for bakery products.

From quantity to quality

Experts have long pointed to the need for strict state control over bread production, due to the complexity of compliance with all standards of hygiene in small shops and bakeries. According to generally accepted standards, each enterprise producing bread needs to have separate rooms for storing flour, which must be stored on special shelves. In addition, according to expert Huseynaga Cafarov, who headed the Azarcorak state production association in 1988-94, at least three hours must pass from the moment the dough is made to the moment the final product is sent to points of sale. It takes 30 minutes to make the dough, and then it should settle for one hour, so that its acidity reaches a level which prevents the possibility of infection by "potato disease". The danger this microbe - "bacillus mesenterecus" - represents to humans is known to all. Unfortunately, "potato disease" is now quite common.

"How consistent with sanitary standards is the transportation of bread in car boots? After baking, it is necessary to wait four hours for the bread to cool off in a special workshop, not to mention the fact that we often buy bread not only half-baked, but also containing foreign bodies. All bakers are obliged to cover their hair, wear slippers (so as not to import germs from other rooms) and undergo regular medical check-ups. How, for example, can the manufacture of dough be entrusted to a person who has the flu or another infectious disease? In fact, not everyone follows all these rules in shops," said Cafarov.

As you know, previously, when there were large bakeries in Azerbaijan, the quality of the product was tested by inward and outward control. The first control checked the quality of flour, salt, yeast etc., and the second - the quality of bread. In order to bake bread, a batch of ground flour is made - mills mix several kinds of grain from a number of countries, taking account of its humidity, stickiness, ash content, milling and other characteristics. For example, the moisture in flour should not exceed 13 per cent. Of course, not a single small shop in Azerbaijan will bother to carry out such meticulous analysis - after all, this represents an additional cost that will certainly affect the cost of production. And not a single entrepreneur will risk selling more expensive bread today - even though consumers have begun to pay more attention to food quality, the question of cost is still the first consideration in an overall assessment of goods.

Incidentally, the last factor has also repeatedly defeated even the government. Take, for instance, the recent sudden increase in bread prices amid assurances by the Ministry of Agriculture that the country's demand for food grain is fully satisfied and the republic is not experiencing any shortage. Despite the government's open dissatisfaction with price increases, we should admit that it does not have enough levers of influence - according to the rules of a market economy, it cannot tell private businesses what price to set for their products.

"Now imagine that due to some force majeure, bakeries suddenly refuse to work. How can you force them to bake bread? After all, they are all free entrepreneurs who have the right to make decisions independently. And what will happen to the public then? It is, therefore, necessary to open large enterprises, which can be employed precisely in these situations," said an economist.

Bakeries across the country

With this in mind, the idea of reviving large bakeries seems justified. However, this is not a question of transferring this sector into state control. Selected projects will be financed both by entrepreneurs and through preferential loans from the National Fund. Participation by the Azerbaijan Investment Company or its subsidiaries is also possible. The Ministry of Economic Development noted that this project will be implemented within the framework of the "State Programme for Food Security for the Population of Azerbaijan from 2008-15", approved by presidential order on 25 August 2008. "Investment proposals for building new, and reconstructing old, bakeries are being accepted throughout the country," said the Ministry of Economic Development.

The main goals of the programme are to bring the planned enterprises into line with modern standards and sanitary and hygienic norms, provide them with new equipment, establish warehousing for raw materials and finished products and install systems of packaging and laboratory analysis.

"One of our key requirements is for agreements with manufacturers of raw materials, which should be a guarantee of uninterrupted and stable supplies of ingredients necessary to the enterprise for baking bread and bakery products," noted the ministry. It will also prevent unnecessary and sudden changes in the cost of bread. Although the presence of large enterprises will only enable the government to regulate this business indirectly, it is much easier to negotiate with a dozen large businesses than with thousands of small bakery owners.

"Our main idea is to organize the production of high quality bakery products from different kinds of flour, of different weights and with an appropriate price cap. The aim is to address the demand from all sections of the population for bread at the highest level. Bread and bakery products must also be packaged qualitatively, providing consumers with all the necessary information, and sold in compliance with norms and standards," the ministry stressed. It is possible that these enterprises will need to train personnel separately because, as has already been stated, they must install equipment using modern technology.

It must be noted that the National Fund to Support Entrepreneurship (NFSE) already has 17 proposals for the establishment of large bakeries. According to the Fund's executive director, Sirzad Abdullayev, these have come from five economic regions - four investment proposals from businesses in the Aran region, three from the Quba-Xacmaz region, one each from the Ganca-Qazax and Abseron regions and eight proposals from entrepreneurs in Baku. He said that the total cost of the 17 investment proposals is 27.3 million manats, of which 17.6 million manats will come from preferential loans allocated by the Fund. The cost of tender proposals ranged from 500,000 to 4.2 million manats, and the demand for NFSE loans - from 230,000 to 2.8 million manats.

In short, the beginning of this programme is not far off. So it is hoped that with the arrival of new, really big competitors on the market, the quality of bread sold in Azerbaijan will improve markedly. And then, the manufacturers of other food products will follow suit. After all, there is a saying - bread is the main thing...