Sliced bread is an endangered species in Kenya

 By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

13 May 2012

In the good old days, the weight of a standard loaf of bread in Kenya was 500g. Larger loaves weighed 1,000g (1kg) and 1.5kg. Then somewhere in the mid-1990s, the weights were changed to 400g, 800g and 1.2kg, respectively. I do not understand what necessitated the change. Indeed, I think it was probably a bad move: 500g is a nice round figure while 400g is simply awkward.

Nonetheless, I do remember that when the weights were changed, the prices did not. Thus bakers were able to make some extra profit as a result of the automatic 20 per cent drop in the cost of raw materials per loaf.

A lot of time has passed since the 1990s and by now the profit gains made have been wiped out by increased competition in the market. But bakers use another ingenious method to increase their sales – and profit.

When the weight was 500g, a sliced loaf of bread had 19 slices (I used to count them!). When it changed to 400g, the number of slices reduced to 15. Bakers figured out that they could increase their sales by reducing the number of slices per loaf. Today, you will find that most 400g-loaves have about 12 thick slices. This simple adjustment has significant effect on the family budget.

Consider a typical household with 7 people – mum, dad, 4 kids and a maid. If we allow two slices of bread per person per day, it turns out that one 15-slice loaf is enough for them. Indeed they have an extra slice daily which can come in handy when they get an unexpected visitor.

But when the slices are made thicker and the number reduced to 12, one loaf is no longer enough. The family needs to buy two loaves on the first day of a week – 24 slices. They consume the usual 14 slices and are left with 10.

On the second day, they buy one more 12-slice loaf. Adding the 10 that remained the previous day, they now have 22 slices. Again they consume 14 leaving 8. If they continue buying one loaf daily, they will have enough bread all the way to the sixth day.

On the seventh day, they have buy two loaves and repeat the process. Thus they are now consuming seven loaves every six days. For the baker, this is a 16.7 per cent increase in sales as a result of simply changing the size of the slices. Brilliant, isn’t it?

Well, not quite. Upon realising that one loaf of bread is not enough, many families have now turned to buying un-sliced bread – the so called “block loaf”. This is then manually sliced at home to the correct number of slices enough for everyone. That’s a small inconvenience compared to the Sh40-saving in the household weekly budget.

I suspect that if a bright baker switched back to the thinner 15 slices per loaf, they would win a big chunk of the market. Otherwise, it appears that sliced bread (the greatest invention of the 20th century!) will soon disappear from Kenya.