Ministry bans İstanbul Municipality’s mobile bread sales

* Photo: İMM News

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Issuing a circular, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has banned bread sales with mobile buffets of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İMM).

After the proposal to set up 142 new cheap bread buffets across the city was rejected at the municipal council by the members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the opposition-led İMM has introduced mobile bread buffets.

While the municipal council has then approved setting up new regular bread buffets across the city in a recent vote, the ban of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has been announced by the İMM News on Twitter:

"The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has issued a circular letter banning bread sales with İMM's mobile buffets."

Özgen Nama, the Executive Board Deputy Chair of İstanbul People's Bread (İHE), a municipal company selling cheaper bread and bakery products, has also tweeted under the hashtag #HalkınEkmeği (The Bread of the People):

"My recommendation to those having their eyes on people's bread: They should research and read the foundation history of the People's Bread well... We will keep standing by our people having difficulties in making ends meet and providing them with cheap and healthy bread."

'We will do home delivery, if necessary'

İMM's Spokesperson Murat Ongun has also stated that, if necessary, they will do home delivery for people in need. Ongun has noted that the İHE will continue its healthy and cheap bread services with its mobile service vehicles. "Our citizens should not worry about the news reported in the press. We will deliver the bread you need to your home," he has noted.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) İstanbul Provincial Vice Chair Can Kıran has also talked about the issue and said:

"As if the prevention of the AKP-MHP municipal council group was not enough, now the ministry has stepped in ... Don't play with people's bread! Saying nothing to the Red Crescent distributing aid with this method, the Agriculture Ministry has banned İHE's mobile buffets."

After the Ministry issued this circular, the İMM posted a tweet at 11 p.m. yesterday (January 21) and shared the places where İstanbulites can buy bread from mobile bread buffets of the municipality.

In a statement on January 19, Murat Ongun said that obstacles to bread sales with mobile bread buffets had been overcome.

What happened?

The request for setting up cheap bread buffets in İstanbul was rejected at the municipal council of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İMM) by the votes of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) members on March 14, 2020.

AKP Group Deputy Chair Tevfik Gürsu, on January 11, 2021, denied that they had rejected the proposal, challenging the ones who accused them to prove the contrary. In response to this, CHP MP Tuncay Özkan shared the video footage of the related municipal council session.

Amid these debates, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality introduced mobile bread buffets to meet the demand for cheaper bread in the city.

As photos of long bread queues from various parts of the city had been recently circulating on social media, Okan Gedik, the general director of the İstanbul Halk Ekmek (İHE), a municipal company selling cheaper bread and bakery products, said that they moved to meet the increasing demand for bread.

To ease the load on the Halk Ekmek points, 40 mobile buffets started service in 26 districts of İstanbul, he said.

"Halk Ekmek was producing 800, 900 thousand pieces of bread a day. As the living conditions, which have become more difficult with the pandemic, increased the interest in our cheap and healthy bread, we have increased the production to 1.25 million pieces of bread a day," Gedik told reporters at an event for the introduction of the mobile buffets.

The 20 percent increase in bread prices in October has led even more people to choose Halk Ekmek, Gedik said. While a 200-gram loaf of bread is sold at 1.25 lira (17 US cents) at bakeries, the municipal company currently sells a 250-gram loaf of bread for 1 lira (13 cents).

Gedik noted that the mobile buffets were introduced after the Municipal Council, where the AKP-MHP bloc has the majority, prevented the opposition-led municipality to open 142 new regular buffets.

In a later vote, the proposal to set up new regular bread buffets was unanimously approved by the municipal council on a series of conditions put forward by the AKP group.

(EKN/SD)