The Mexican Government intervenes to stop the rise in the price of tortilla

Fernando Lozano Galicia and Martha Hernandez Carrillo work at the tortilleria "Tortillas La Abuela," in Mexico City. Rebecca Blackwell / AP

The price of the tortilla, Mexico's staple food, is not going to go up.

For now.

It will remain at about 16 pesos per kilo on average, a relief for millions of low-income families.

The dough and tortilla industrialists have thanked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for his direct intervention in this matter, which has led to the meeting between the flour companies and the Ministry of Economy.

“It would be criminal for the price of tortilla to rise in times of a pandemic.

Those of us behind the counter know the suffering that many families are going through.

A seven-member household that used to carry two kilos of tortillas daily these days has dropped to one ”, said Antonio de la Torre, head of the National Union of Dough and Tortilla, one of the many organizations in this sector.

The Ministry of Economy has thanked the entire production chain, from farmers to tortilla makers, for their "solidarity effort".

The noise about the possible rise in the price of tortilla was incessant for a month, one of the elements that contribute to the rise in inflation and that the Bank of Mexico fears.

The flour mills announced to the tortilleros an increase of 700 pesos per ton for the beginning of December.

The industrialists warned that they would be forced to raise a weight per kilo of tortillas to absorb the cost.

Price adjustments are common year after year, but the pandemic and the fall into poverty of many families make the extra cost in 2020 especially painful. Each Mexican ingests about 25 grams of this product per day.

The Federal Consumer Prosecutor's Office (Profeco) recently warned that there was no reason to raise the tortilla given that corn production was good.

The Federal Commission for Economic Competition (Cofece) also indicated to industrialists that they could not raise prices en bloc in the case of a product that was liberalized in 1998.

The industrialists reacted by asking the president for help when faced with the warning from the flour mills.

"Every year our prices go up and we don't usually pass them on to the consumer because we know that the poorest are the ones who consume the most tortillas," says Rubén Montalvo, president of the National Chamber of the Dough and Tortilla Industry.

This Thursday, at a press conference, Montalvo thanked López Obrador for his intervention, who ordered the Economy to negotiate with the large flour mills, Maseca and Minsa.

"The omelette will not rise," he assured.

And they have shown a message on Monday in which Minsa announces to its distributors that the new price of a ton of flour is suspended.

The Undersecretary of Industry, Ernesto Acevedo Fernández, confirmed the information to De la Torre.

It is possible that in some places, occasionally, the price will increase a little.

Some of the small flour mills have increased the ton of raw material, "but it will be very few," said Montalvo, accompanied at the digital conference by more than 20 industrialists, which account for 80% of the sector in the country.

Vendors have complained that they are taken for guilty when the tortilla rises, because they are "the ones who show their faces" in the 110,000 tortillerías in the country.

They claim that they have been absorbing the rise in costs for years without passing it on to the customer.

They are the second harmed.

Montalvo has indicated that in eminently tourist areas such as the State of Quintana Roo, the tortilla trade has fallen by 70% with taquerías, hotels and restaurants closed.

The large flour mills have not responded to this newspaper's request to comment.

Despite being a liberalized product, Profeco warned that it would investigate and sanction those who unjustifiably raised the price and informed consumers that the reference was 16 pesos per kilo.

The attorney general's office can only act if it receives a complaint from a consumer.

In that case, you could investigate whether industrialists have paid more for fuel, for energy used in manufacturing, for flour.

If there are no bills to prove it, they could be fined, they explain in the federal agency.

The threat of a price increase foreseen for the beginning of December has been dismantled.

At noon, Edgar leans against the counter of his tortilla shop in the Santa María La Ribera neighborhood of Mexico City.

"The kilo will continue to cost 14 pesos," he says.

"We pay more for electricity, but something slight," he says.

Edgar sells about 35 kilos a day and has been working in that business for seven years.

A few streets away, in another tortilla factory, Armando gives the same answer while wrapping a kilo in an embroidered cloth.

"If I just go up a penny, customers get upset."