AUBURN - Dough isn't the only thing rising as local bakeries began to feel the pinch of higher commodity prices.

A few tempers were rising, too.

Denise Siracusa, owner of Rose's Bakery since 1984, just couldn't take it anymore when her flour supplier upped prices four weeks in a row.

A 50-pound bag of flour that had cost between $9 and $10 last year had gone from $12 to $24 in a matter of about four weeks.

“They told me they sold our flour to another country at a premium price and now there's a shortage here in the U.S,” Siracusa said, when she contacted supplier Dawn Foods to find out why prices for flour went up.

“All I know is what they told me. I started a protest today.”

Siracusa placed banners in her bakery window on Genesee Street saying, “America First.” She also printed up a stack of fliers with the “America First” slogan and asked customers to put them in their windows. Within a few hours on Friday the stack of 40 that she had printed were gone as customers grabbed them off the shelf.

“People are very concerned and have a lot to say about their jobs,” Siracusa said. “America first. We want to be first, not second anymore. We want to stand on our own two feet and tell the government how we feel.”

Siracusa is going to see if she can get more fliers. She is encouraging friends and customers to send e-mails and to make their own versions of “America First.”

“I'm just making a peaceful protest,” she said.

Meanwhile, across town, Cameron's Bakery on Grant Avenue, was facing the same problem.

“It's more like a rape,” Adriana Briseno, co-owner of Cameron's, said. Her parents bought Cameron's 30 years ago. The bakery is known for its Italian bread.

Briseno said the flour went from about $13 or $14 for a 50-pound bag to $20 in the same time period.

“It's expected to go up to $25 and $30 within the next two weeks,” she said.

The bakery posted signs on its door saying prices are going up. The Italian bread that cost $1.75 per loaf Friday is $2.25 on Monday.

“We've never had to jump our prices up so fast in the history of the bakery,” she said. “They're exporting flour because people will pay more for it overseas.”

Briseno believed the flour was being exported to Europe because the value of the dollar was down against the Euro.

“They're shorting us to sell to Europe and make more money,” she said.

The supplier never even notified Briseno about the increase in prices. Her brother, co-owner Tony Briseno, looked at the invoices and discovered it. If he hadn't called the local representative of Dawn Foods, he wouldn't have known it was going to go up even higher, up to $25 in the near future.

“It's going to cost the consumer,” Briseno said, “but it's the only way we can stay in business, especially if they jumped it up so fast.”

Wegmans manager Elmer Alton said, “I do know flour is going through the roof.”

He believed it had something to do with energy people using grain for making ethanol.

“The reasons for the increase in the price of flour are multifold,” said Joe Soboti, sales manager for Dawn Foods. “First, there have been three years of drought in the major wheat-producing areas in Australia and Europe. Last year in the United States there were also droughts.

“Second, there is a population explosion globally. In countries like China, a half-billion people rose up out of poverty to a middle-class standard, including protein consumption. It takes a higher quality of grain to grow protein.”

He refers to feeding livestock with grain.

“Third, because the commodity markets are buying up this product, it drives the price up. They are hoping to find a buyer to sell at a higher price. Fourth, it's exported to other economies. Companies' costs went up because prices went up, especially flour and soy.”

Soboti said there is pressure globally on all food prices. Today, people in the wheat-producing regions are reaping big benefits. Wheat went from $4 per bushel to $15 and $18 a bushel.

Dawn Foods is an 80-year-old family-owned business, a manufacturer and distributor of bakery ingredients with a global presence. It has 17 facilities for distribution and manufacturing in the U.S., Mexico, South America, Europe, and the Far East.

It serves about 200 bakeries in upstate New York.

Soboti said he didn't know how much higher the price of flour was going to go, but he believes that it will continue to escalate. He said that his company buys flour two or three months in advance and that the flour he has for future distribution is already more expensive than the flour bakeries are getting today.

Even though “Let them eat cake” is not a choice here when bread prices are out of sight, Soboti says, “Bakery goods are still a bargain. Many bakeries have not raised their prices to keep pace with inflation.”

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext.238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net