Once a staple on Italian tables, bread is now disappearing due to changing life styles and rising prices, the Coldiretti farmers' union said on Monday.
"Bread consumption in the first seven months of the year fell 5.6% from the same period in 2006 and bread sales have tumbled by one third since 2000," Coldiretti said.
"Annual bread consumption in the home is now at an historic low and has for the first time fallen below one million tonnes," to 989,000 tonnes.
According to Coldiretti, the decline in bread consumption "is certainly linked to changing life styles but it has also coincided with a steady rise in retail prices, which have soared 419% in the past 20 years".
The farmers' union also pointed that the amount a farmer is paid for his wheat accounts for less than 10% of the price of the final baked product.
The price of bread differs from city to city, costing as much as 3.35 euros a kilo in Milan and as little as 2.08 euros in Rome.
