A regular food item that I had been buying for some time was a packet of brown bread rolls made by a well-known Gozitan bakery. However, I was utterly taken back last week when, on picking up the packet from the shelf, I noticed that instead of the usual five rolls, there were only three.

Aware of the request by bakers to raise the price of bread and the authorities’ refusal, I consider this a very surreptitious ploy by the company of unilaterally getting its way not by actually increasing the price but by reducing the contents by 20 per cent, which also translates into a 20 per cent rise in price.

I complained to the supermarket cashier, who said there was nothing they could do about it.

Can the authorities allow this to happen?

Needless to say, the Buy Local slogan has disappeared from my screen and I have stopped buying the Gozitan company’s products, opting for similar goods produced by an Italian bakery.