The joy felt by children when they celebrate their birthday remains incomplete in the absence of cakes and sweets. With the soaring prices of foodstuffs, the prices of sweets have also increased, and therefore, mothers have no choice now but to make homemade cakes in order to save money.

“A cake’s price has jumped from 75,000 to 300,000 Lebanese pounds,” a sweet factory owner told Sawt Beirut International (SBI) reporter Sara Chehadeh, saying “the price of the cork plate on which the cake is placed is $10 (130,000 LBP), the price of 5 kg of sugar paste is $20 while that of a (whipped) cream can rose from 9,000 to 45,000 LBP.”

“No one is going to buy an ordinary cake for eight persons for the price of 140,000 LBP, which has forced us to sell it for 50,000 to 60,000 LBP, thus reducing our profits to the maximum,” he said.

Another man said prices have increased a lot “but here’s the difference: when the U.S. dollar used to be traded for 1,500 LBP, a cake’s price was 30,000 (roughly $20), but today, if a cake’s price is 90,000 LBP, it is equivalent to $7-8. There’s a huge difference.”

Some shop owners have closed their doors while others are finding it difficult to keep their businesses open under this situation.

Despite all this, Lebanese citizens will continue to celebrate with joy, hoping that the country’s leaders will let them live in peace and dignity and that they wouldn’t have to wait in lines on a daily basis in order to get some food.