An entire loaf of bread is not a big deal to those who can afford it but for people like Kirk from the Maxfield Park area of Kingston, it is a luxury.

The young man, who has an on-again-off-again job on a construction site, says he rarely can afford a whole loaf and so he resorts to buying bread as he needs it - two slices at a time.

A resident of Rema collects two slices of bread for which she paid $25. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

"Yesterday morning mi just hot some tea and buy two slice ah bread wid butter and that was breakfast," he told the Sunday Observer.

The two buttered slices cost him $40 but in some other communities, it goes for $10 less. Depending on the size, the main ingredient (white or whole wheat flour) and whether it is sliced or not, a loaf of bread can cost anywhere between $98 and $200 and it is this fact, according to Kirk, that makes bread by the slice his reality.

"Things hard, man. Everything expensive and mi nah do nutten now so mi cyaan afford it," he said, mirroring what must be the reality for a number of people who live in inner-city communities.

"Yuh can buy 1/2 or 1/4 ah bread but if yu nuh have di money yuh can get two slice," said Cass.

Food prices across the world have rocketed in the past year, caused primarily by the spike in the price of oil, which hit US$103 per barrel last week. The push to produce biofuels as an alternative to hydrocarbons has also affected food prices since more and more farmers are growing corn and wheat for fuels rather than for consumption, and climate change has also been fingered for its role in disrupting harvests.

The effect has been felt locally with the prices of staples such as rice, flour, cornmeal and sugar almost doubling in the past year.

Checks at shops in Rema, Maxfield Avenue, Whitfield Town and Spanish Town Road indicate that a 1/4 of a loaf retails at $45 or $50. A half goes for $90 or $100. Over time, this works out to be more expensive than buying a whole loaf, but as Conyute reasons, it depends on the amount of money available at any one time.

"If yuh buy a bread it can serve yu fi two or three day, but if yuh nuh have di money an yuh feel peckish, yuh a go buy di slice."

The Sunday Observer went in search of shops that sell bread by the slice because of Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller's declaration at a political rally in Spaldings last Thursday that the economic situation in the country had got so bad that corner shops were now selling the staple by the slice.

As we found out, however, although it has caused a further division of the 1/2 or 1/4 loaves which were more commonly sold in the '80s and '90s, the bread-by-the-slice phenomenon is not entirely new. And the recent hike in the price of food is not entirely to blame either.

A female shopkeeper on Spanish Town Road in the vicinity of KIW International Ltd sold this reporter two chunky slices for $25 and charged an extra $5 for adding butter. She said she has been selling bread like that now for "two or three years".

Why?

"Because ah ghetto, an ah wha di people dem can afford," she said. "Di pickney dem come buy it and di elderly people dem too. Mi all sell 1/2 lb of sugar, 1/2 lb ah flour, rice, anyting. An di old people dem buy it because ah dem alone and dem nuh have nuh money."

"I know of a shop that used to do it, but they closed down about five years ago," a resident of Spanish Town reported. "If yuh wanted one slice yuh get it. If yuh wanted two yuh get it, an if yuh wanted it butter, yuh get it, but I don't remember how much it was for at the time."

Off Collie Smith Drive in Rema, Elaine, who was keeping shop for her sister, told the Sunday Observer that another reason bread was sold by the slice was because of the community's identity.

"Ah it dem love. If yuh nuh sell it dem sey yuh boasty," she laughed. "Sometime some people cyaan even buy a whole bread and if dem don't have di money, dem just buy $25 worth."

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