Israeli bread crisis averted after talks

JERUSALEM -- Israel's flour mills agreed to end a six-day work stoppage Sunday, reaching accord with the government for a 14 percent increase in flour prices and averting a nationwide bread shortage.\nThroughout Sunday Israelis had scrambled to buy pitas and other baked goods as bread disappeared from shop shelves as a result of the strike by flour mills demanding a 20 percent increase in price.\nMillers said the need for a price hike stemmed from the increased cost of importing wheat from the United States, where a poor crop this year had resulted in higher prices.\nAfter six hours of negotiations that ended close to midnight, Trade Minister Dalia Itzik agreed to an immediate 14 percent rise in flour prices but insisted that bakers pass the increase on to customers only in the fancier bread types.\nThe price of standard loaves, which are the staple of lower-income families, will remained unchanged, Itzik said.\n"We shall not allow the standard bread to rise in price," he told Israeli armed forces radio. "It is a basic need for very many Israeli citizens."\nBakers said shops' bread shelves should be replenished by midday Monday.\nBakeries across Israel sent workers home Sunday because they had no flour with which to bake. Others bought flour off the black market -- at inflated prices. Shoppers flocked to markets to stock up, vowing to freeze their pitas in case they can't get fresh ones in the coming days.\nDani Angel, owner of Angel Bakery, one of Israel's leading bakeries, shut down his ovens and sent his 1,500 employees home for the first time in a career older than the 54 years of Israeli statehood.\n"I have worked for 70 plus years in this business, and this is the first time that I have had to close my bakeries," said Angel. "It wasn't closed during the war of Independence, during the '67 war, nor during the War of Yom Kippur, and it is hurting my business badly"