Archive for May 22nd, 2011

22
May

A Bread War Has Commenced

   Posted by: admin    in Business, Food

The Fort Dodge Messenger: May 22, 1903

A Bread War Has Commenced

Fort Dodge Bakers are at Outs Over the Delivery Wagon Question

Price Cutting May Be Expected

Columbia Restaurant Has Dropped From 3 Loaves for 10 Cents to 2 for 5 Cents

For (sic) Dodge is having a bread war which will vie in fierceness with the sewing machine war, if present indications are followed to their logical conclusion. As a result, Fort Dodge people may expect to have cheap bread for some little time to come.

Hostilities have been pending for some little time and have grown out of the action of some of the bakers in putting delivery wagons on the street.

At that timeo (sic), bread was selling for five cents a loaf for six for a quarter. Soon after that, some of the bakers who were without wagons, lowered the price of their bread to 10 cents for three loaves, claiming that in this way, they were making no more money than their brethren who had the expense of wagons to bear, and were charging 5 cents a loaf or six loaves for a quarter.

This caused other price cutting until finally a meeting was called on Wednesday evening at which an effort was made by the bakers who do not deliver bread to have the delivery wagons taken off, and sell the bread thru grocery stores or from the bakeries, as the straight price of five cents or six loaves for a quarter. Some of the bakers with wagons agreed to this, but others refused, and the meeting broke up, after a protracted session, without accomplishing anything.

The first gun in the bread war was fired this morning, when the Columbia restaurant began to sell at the rate of two loaves for 5 cents, dropping from three loaves for ten cents, which they had been previously charging. Counter action on the part of the other bakeries came and the situation will probably become interesting within a short time.

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