The Philippine Baking Industry Group (PhilBaking) on Tuesday, Jan 17, said that prices of cakes and other pastries including mamon, ensaymada, egg pie, and sans rival were expected to increase due to an increase in the prices of eggs in the market.

"The baking industry is greatly affected by the recent increase [in] egg prices [although] this has been ongoing for more than six months [now]," President of PhilBaking Jerry Lao said.

He also underlined the importance of eggs in producing pastries.

"In cakes, we use more eggs than cake flour. Cakes [and] cupcakes are greatly affected," he added.

This was backed by another group of bakers Asosasyon ng Panaderong Pilipino as their president Lucito Chavez exclaimed that there are no other ingredients to replace the egg.

“There is no alternative to eggs when baking a cake… If eggs aren’t fresh, bakers won’t be able to produce fluffy mamon,” he said.

According to Lao, bakers might add at least P1 to the cost of a 50-gram cupcake for every P2 increase in egg price.

However, he also clarified that prices might differ as bakers have different computations.

Meanwhile, the president of the Philippine Egg Board Association Gregorio San Diego confirmed that the low supply of eggs was due to bird flu outbreaks in producing regions.