This is a follow-up to our Oct. 7 report. Guerrero's masa-and-tortilla trade group now says it will decide in December whether to raise tortilla prices, according to two reports from the Chilpancingo news site En Primer Plano (Oct. 19, Oct. 20). Earlier this month the group had said members would hold prices through year-end, as Tortilla News reported.
With local grain scarce after the drought, members are sourcing corn in Sinaloa, Jalisco and Michoacán at up to MX$10,500 per metric ton, group leader Arcadio Castro Santos told reporters at a press conference covered Oct. 20. He put Guerrero-grown corn at MX$6,500 to MX$7,000 a ton roughly a month before. Castro also asked the state government for help buying corn, citing a comparable program from the past five years as the model.
Some shops have already moved. A check of Chilpancingo tortillerías published Oct. 19 found the kilo at MX$28 downtown (from MX$26) and MX$26 in the Cuauhtémoc Norte neighborhood (from MX$23), with MX$30 to MX$32 in parts of Acapulco. The state corn producers' council, Sistema Producto Maíz, describes drought damage in 83 municipalities as severe. These figures come from local checks and the trade group, not an official price series.
Industriales de la Masa y la Tortilla de Guerrero