No plan to increase flour price, despite Middle East conflict – NAMILCO

Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 April 2026, 23:19 by Writer

Despite rising prices of fertiliser, fuel and freight globally due to the raging United States-Iran war, the American-owned National Milling Company (NAMILCO) is not planning to charge Guyanese more for wheat flour over the next six to 12 months because its model allows for a stable price mechanism.

“We will do our best to effectively hold a stable price point in Guyana, basically over the foreseeable future, “NAMILCO’s Managing Director, Scott Mitchell told Demerara Waves Online News.

He declined to discuss the purchase cost of wheat, saying procurement was being handled by its network of 14 trading offices in 12 countries.

NAMILCO’s parent company is the Kansas-headquartered Seaboard Corporation.

Trading Economics reported on Wednesday that wheat futures fell nearly 3% to $5.98 per bushel, easing from a nine-month high of $6.16 on March 31, as improving sentiment around the Middle East conflict reduced pressure on agricultural markets.

Though Mr Mitchell could not rule out a price hike for flour, he boasted that the company had a good track record of keeping wholesale flour prices down in Guyana.

He said from 2022, NAMILCO’s energy cost soared to 24 percent, labour costs increased more than 150 percent and distribution costs went up over 180 percent. However, consumers were asked to pay a 2.1 percent increase.

“That’s our focus is to try to protect those Guyanese households from large price fluctuations and I think we’ve been able to demonstrate that over the last couple of years as well,” he said.

The NAMILCO boss acknowledged that there would be a spike in wheat prices because of a projected reduction in production by one million acres in the US due to higher fertiliser prices. “So there’s going to be less weight as a result of the price of fertilizer, which could push commodity prices up in the future,” he said.

He sought to assure Guyanese that stringent efforts would be made against increasing the price of wheat flour on the local market over the next 12 months.

In addition to its own pricing system, Mr Mitchell said Seaboard Corporation’s vessels that transport wheat are fuelled with natural gas, a cleaner and cheaper option.

Additionally, he said more vessels were now available because Seaboard was shipping less and so the cost of freight had reduced.

He further explained that Seaboard has its own vessels, jetties, and processing facility. “As a result of that…the vertical integration allows us to generally absorb short-term volatility in the marketplace so we will do our best to effectively hold a stable price point in Guyana over the basically, over the foreseeable future,” he said.

At the end of the six or 12 months, the company plans to explore additional efficiencies such as energy from the new six-storey mill that would be constructed at its Eccles, East Bank Demerara location.

Cheaper energy from Guyana’s 300-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara would contribute to greater efficiencies.

Plans are also being made to train NAMILCO’s team to ensure the company produces a higher quality product to sell to other countries. “We can then open up export markets to absorb those fixed costs. So, everything that we’re currently doing at the moment will help us offset that price pressure as we move beyond that twelve-month period,” he said.