Bakers Would Abolish 5-Cent Loaf

1916

Chicago, Sept. 9. — Recommendations to all bakers of the United States that the five-cent loaf of bread be abandoned and the ten-cent loaf standardized, were made after considerable discussion at the closing session of the executive committee of the National Association of Master Bakers yesterday. They urged that the recommendations be put into effect immediately. Economic waste incident to the manufacture of the five-cent loaf was emphasized. Saving in manufacture, improvement in quality and standardization are urged in favor of the ten-cent loaf. It is also recommended that where local conditions make it necessary a smaller loaf may be maintained, with a price consistent with the cost of manufacture.

The bakers cited the following percentages of increase in the cost in the ingredients in the manufacture of bread within the past two years: Patent flour, 100 per cent; rye, 124 per cent; sugar, 66 per cent; shortening, 60 per cent; milk, 40 per cent; salt, 14 per cent; wrapping paper, 70 per cent. Delivery costs also have increased, it was stated, through an advance of 100 per cent in the price of gasolene and of 25 per cent in feed for horses.

The bakers went on record strongly against any attempt to lower the quality of bread.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6

Attached to the Bakery

1900

A plausible tale of a man who bought a loaf of bread and took away more property than he paid for, is told by the Pawtucket correspondent of the Providence Telegram. The man was in a hurry to catch a car.

His impatience made the clerk nervous. She forgot to snap the string which bound the paper about the loaf, and away sped the man with the loaf, while the string reeled off behind him.

He caught the car all right, and although the conductor and some of the passengers noticed, as he sat down close to the door, that the twine paid itself out as the car rolled along, the man did not discover the tangle until he alighted. In the meantime the conductor was having a good time; as passengers stepped on the platform he cautioned them not to walk on that string, and they did not.

It might have looked mysterious to the people who saw the string moving along the street, for the unravelling continued until the bakery twine bobbin had been nearly emptied by the connected loaf a mile away. The man with the bread felt a tug at his loaf as he stepped down from the car. Then he followed up the cord, winding as he went.

He was one of those strictly honest men who want nothing that does not belong to them; and the best part of the story is that he followed the string back, winding as he walked, and in due time entered the bakery and restored the ball of twine. — Youth's Companion.