The state bakeries in Las Tunas are facing a situation that highlights the challenges of ensuring orderly access to bread, with customers waiting for hours and resellers managing to acquire large quantities of the product.
An article published this Saturday in the official newspaper 26 describes what happened in La Colmena, located in the historical center of the city, where a line of about 50 people waited in the sun.
Among the customers were elderly individuals with walking sticks, people with visual impairments, and mothers and fathers looking to secure bread for their families.
According to the text, three resellers passed by consecutively, and each took a quantity of bread similar to what the group of customers waiting in line expected to acquire.
For those who remained waiting, the amount available turned out to be "insignificant."
Consumer complaints for better organization were met with no response from the clerk, who, according to the report, simply stated, "I don't organize lines."
The criticism does not propose banning self-employed workers from buying bread, but rather establishing a mechanism that allows alternating service between these buyers and regular customers.
The goal is to prevent those who wait for hours from being pushed aside by those who purchase larger quantities all at once.
This situation is compounded by the limitation on purchases through digital platforms. At La Colmena, only two loaves of bread can be purchased via Transfermóvil or EnZona, while at the Tunas II bakery, located on Colón street, the limit is three units. In other establishments, the purchase of bolita bread is restricted to four.
According to the media outlet, these amounts may be insufficient for large families and contrasts these restrictions with the operation of the Intalsur bakery, located next to the Ibero-American House of Décima El Cucalambé, where it is permitted to purchase up to 10 loaves of bread through digital payment.
In September, residents of Cojímar reported that resellers were emptying the state bakery La Aguja to sell the product at much higher prices, affecting mainly retired individuals. The theater director Hugo Vargas described it as something happening "right in front of everyone in line."
In Guantánamo, Governor Alis Azahares Torreblanca acknowledged that same month that state bakeries were using blackouts as an excuse not to produce despite having flour available, and ordered a reorganization of production into several shifts.
Cuba needs approximately 20,000 tons of wheat flour monthly to ensure the regulated bread supply, but in June, the Minister of Food Industry, Alberto López Díaz, admitted that of the six wheat vessels contracted for 2026, only one had arrived, and a shipment of 5,000 tons was withdrawn before setting sail.
At that time, the only operational mill in Cienfuegos was producing 250 tons daily, whereas 700 tons were needed; the ones in Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba remained inactive.
Since September 2024, the official weight of state-regulated bread has been reduced from 80 to 60 grams, and in some provinces, it has dropped to as low as 40 grams this year.
In Villa Clara, the regulated bread has been restricted since February to only those under 13 and over 65. In Havana, the price of 400-gram bread rose from 240 to 500 pesos in July -an increase of 108%-. The minimum wage of 3,210 pesos barely covers about six units a month.
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