Craft bakers say they put up their prices due to rising costs for ingredients such as flour and butter, following a mixed summer’s trading.

Gary Reeve of Salisbury-based Reeve the Baker said sales were up between 5-8% as the cooler wea-ther meant people went to the high street rather than the beaches. But due to high flour and butter prices, the bakery has added between 5-10p on its products.

Canvey Island-based BB Grout’s chain of 11 shops saw sales up by about 10% during the summer. "Our hot food range, especially sausage rolls, has done very well," said MD Giles Grout. Bad weather encouraged customers to buy cakes, pies and pastries, but sales of sandwiches also declined. BB Grout put up its prices by about 4.5%.

Mike Holling, retail operations manager of Birds of Derby said it had managed to keep its price increases under 3%. "We’ve absorbed some of the costs," said Holling.

Sales performance was in line with expectations during the second quarter (weeks 14 to 25) with like-for-like sales rising to 4.4%.

Trevor Mooney, joint MD of 22-shop chain Chatwins of Nantwich, said that bakery sales were up on last year. The bad weather meant that sales of cream products and savouries did not dip, usually typical during the summer. "We’ve been selling a lot more sand- wiches," Mooney added. "We recently bought vans, which are doing a great lunchtime trade."

Dawson’s bakery added 6p to an 800g loaf. MD Robert Dawson said the company’s prices will have to go up again in October in line with an increase in flour prices. He said that the bakery had done well over the summer, with like-for-like sales up 4%.

John Foster, MD of Foster’s bakery, in Barnsley, said: "The summer’s rain affected us very badly. The floods have made the wheat quality in our area poor and, as a result, we are now throwing away about 5% of our products."