High cost of flour: Gurasa bakers threaten to shut business in Kano

Lovers of Gurasa, a popular delicacy for many people in Kano, may soon find it difficult to buy one as the producers are threatening to stop production due to rising cost of flour, a major ingredient for its production.

Gurasa is local bread popularly known with Kano people and being sold in many areas within and outside the metropolis. People in some other northern states also take on the business although they could not match the Kano people large production and expertise.

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Hajiya Amina Abubakar, the chairperson of Gurasa Makers Association in Kano, said that the price of flour was skyrocketing every day and sustaining the business had become very difficult for them.

“The price you buy flour in the morning is different from the one you buy in the evening.

“Even though we don’t have any other source of income, as most of us are widows with vulnerable orphans, it is better to slow down than to continue running the business in difficult situations like this. Now, most of us don’t have the capital, as some have been sued to court over one debt or another. So we are running the business at a loss”, she said.

Hajiya Amina added that the members had earlier taken up some drastic measures to remain in the business including reducing the size of the delicacy but that had not yielded the desired result.

She said apart from buying the flour at exorbitant prices, they were also struggling with the issue of adulteration of the flour.

The Secretary of the association, Ahmad Rufa’i Tanko said that the situation had put some of their members in debt.

The association called on the authority concerned to look into their problem and save their businesses from collapsing.

However,  the Secretary of Gurasa Sellers Association, Hadiyatullah Muhammaad, advised the bakers should think outside the box with a view to rescuing the business.

Residents, who spoke with Kano/Jigawa Chronicle on the issue, called on the government to intervene as they could not afford to miss the delicacy.

Hajiya Rabi Sani and Malam Ibrahim Muhammad, regular consumers of Gurasa, said that shutting down the business would affect them seriously.

When contacted, a major dealer of flour in the popular Singer Market, who doesn’t want his name in print, blamed the high cost of flour to inflation which had also affected other commodities in the market.