The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Awurade Na Aye Bakery - producing company of Hot Oven bread and other products - has made a passionate appeal to the Akufo-Addo-led-government to reduce the import duty on wheat. 

Madam Peace Amegya believes this would help address the rising cost of wheat based flour. 

“I will like to appeal to the government to help with the taxes imposed on the importation of wheat. It will help flour mills reduce their prices”, she said in an interview with the media on the sidelines of the 175th-anniversary thanksgiving service of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana held in Ho. 

She further lamented the unprecedented increase in prices of items used in producing bread, which has adversely affected the pricing of flour products and their patronage. 

“The price of flour has affected my business so much. I stabilised my price for about three years, and the bread was four cedis. But after 2019, it has been increasing every week.

At first, we normally caused traffic on the road but now because the price is high, it is only those who can afford that buy it because it is now GH₵15. 

Flour prices are going up everywhere. Gas prices are going up. Flour was GH₵200 in 2020. Now it’s GH₵640. Margarine was GH₵150. Now it’s GH₵775 GHC. Sugar was GH₵120. Now it’s GH₵750”, she lamented. 

Madam Amegya however assured that the high inflation being experienced in the country would not make her compromise on the quality and standard of her products. 

She disclosed that investors she had met at conferences outside the country expressed interest in investing in Ghana after learning about the business prospects of the country, indicating the local industry with the needed push could help propel Ghana's industrial agenda.

She said she started Awurade Na Aye Bakery in 2002 with a half bag of flour and distributed the bread to neighbours at no cost. 

Madam Amegya said she did so to give people the opportunity to taste her bread and possibly give her feedback on the quality of the product. 

She narrated that after receiving encouraging feedback, she invested in and increased the flour quantity to a full bag and started her bakery on a small scale in the gold mining community of Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.  

“I started the bakery in 2002 in Obuasi, with a half bag of flour, I gave the bread to people to taste. Because the quality was good, I knew people will buy it. So I did something like salaka for people to eat and then started selling. From half to one, up to a 100 and over in Obuasi”, she narrated. 

She said realising that patronage had been good and distributors travelled from across the country to purchase her bread, she decided to establish a branch in the southern part of the Country.

“We decided to buy land in Tema [Afienya] at the roadside, we bought the land and started developing it in 2015 and completed it in 2017.  Because the product is very good, everybody likes it”, she said with a smile.