French bakers worry about rising energy prices

STORY: French bakers worry about rising energy prices DATELINE: Jan. 11, 2023 LENGTH: 00:01:48 LOCATION: LYON, France CATEGORY: ECONOMY SHOTLIST: 1. various of a baker making bread 2. SOUNDBITE (French): ADRIEN FAGES, Baker 3. various of bread for sale 4. bread close-ups STORYLINE: With the new electricity tariffs, some French bakeries are facing a very significant increase in their energy cost. SOUNDBITE (French): ADRIEN FAGES, Baker "In the post-pandemic era, we first met the difficulty of inflation of raw materials, such as wheat, dairy products and canned fruit. Now the difficulty is energy. Our cost has increased by at least 50 percent because flour increased by around 20 to 30 percent, and the price of energy for my bakery has multiplied by three times." The European countries have been suffering under painfully high energy prices as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the spillover of the United States' aggressive interest rate hikes. Xinhua News Age