History of the United Co-operative Baking Society Ltd.

by William Reid

THE PRICE OF BREAD.

Reference is made above to the part which was played by the Federation in keeping down the price of bread. In November 1914 the price of the 4–lb. loaf was increased by a halfpenny; in January 1915 another halfpenny advance took place; and in March of that year another halfpenny; while by the month of May the price had risen to 8d. per 4–lb. loaf. In February 1916 another halfpenny was imposed, and in May of that year yet another halfpenny; while before control came into operation the price in Glasgow and Clydebank had risen to 11½d. and in Belfast to 1/ for the 4–lb. loaf. A rather remarkable note in one of the board minutes for 1916 is that which states that a letter had been received from a co-operative society, protesting against the action of the Federation in refusing to consent to an increase in the price of bread. The secretary of the Federation mercifully kept the name of the society out of the minute of the meeting.

Prior to the beginning of 1915, the catering for the meals of the employees had been done by a committee of themselves, but in March of that year they approached the board with the request that the Society should take over and carry on this work. During these years the output of the Society was increasing gradually but surely. For the year which ended in January 1915, the output was 230,780 sacks, an average of 4,440 sacks per week for the year, and an increase of 440 per week in three years. On the 3rd of April, it was reported that during the preceding week 5,351 sacks had been baked. This constituted a record week’s baking for the Society, but for some time afterwards, until the coming of Government Regulation flour, record after record was made only to be broken. By the month of September 1916, the turnover had risen to 5,410 sacks per week, or almost a thousand sacks of a weekly increase in eighteen months. In the end of that month, the output was 5,925 sacks, and by the end of February 1917 the record figures of 6,012 sacks were reached. In these increases all three bakeries participated, and the rapid increase for 1916 and the early months of 1917 is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that the amount of baking which was done for the military was not nearly so great as it had been in the earlier months of the war. On the last Saturday in 1916, 21,546 dozens of bread were baked and seventy bridecakes made. There had evidently been an epidemic of war marriages at this Hogmanay.