Cooling of inflation not helping Regina’s baking industry

Inflation might be cooling off, but it’s not putting out the fire for those who own restaurants and bakeries in Canada.

On Tuesday, the Government of Canada revealed that inflation across the country was down to 5.2 per cent for February, down from 5.9 per cent for the month of January.

Mila Vuckovic, the owner of Baba’s Dough Box in Regina, opened the store’s doors three years ago with the hope of creating a successful bakery. But because of the rising cost of groceries, she’s been struggling to say the least.

“Our supply runs sky high; it’s unbelievable,” she explained. “Even apples and cherries for the pies, containers, packaging, it’s still sky high. Flour went down a little bit.”

Vuckovic said over the past two years, she’s paying an astronomical amount more now for ingredients than she was three years ago.

“I spend 150 per cent more than I did three years ago,” she said. “It’s all across the board. If I take the invoices from 2020, now it’s 150 per cent up. You cannot raise prices (either) because people just look at you weird and say, ‘I can get (it) at Superstore cheaper.’ ”

Right now, she feels the baking business is not sustainable with these prices, but she wants to continue fighting because of what she’s worked so hard to try and create.

“If I knew this was going to happen with the pricing, there is no way I would open this store. But now I am very stubborn and I don’t want to give up,” Vuckovic said.

While it’s been mostly gloomy news, Vuckovic adds she and her staff were busy at Christmas and hopes they’ll be busy again when the Easter season rolls around.