A data story
The price of a roti
Scroll through the chain from field to plate. The early stages are rough, order-of-magnitude figures — labelled as such. The later stages are exactly verified, including a real gap between what a city notifies as the flour price and what shops actually charge.
Stage 1 of 6
The harvest
Every roti begins on a Punjab or Sindh wheat field. Pakistan grows enough wheat to feed itself in an ordinary year — the crisis, when it comes, is rarely about supply.
Stage 2 of 6
The farm gate
The government sets a support price per maund; what a farmer actually receives depends on middlemen, storage access, and whether procurement agencies are buying that season.
Stage 3 of 6
Milling & transport
Wheat becomes flour at the mill, then travels — fuel and transport costs stack directly onto the milled price before it ever reaches a shop shelf.
Stage 4 of 6
The shop — official price
Karachi's district administration notifies a fixed flour price — the number that's supposed to be true at every till in the city.
Stage 5 of 6
The shop — what shoppers actually pay
Millers reject the notified rate as unworkable and independent reporting finds shops charging well above it — a real, documented gap between the official price and the one a family actually pays.
Stage 6 of 6
The table
Zoom out to the national weekly average and the number is unambiguous either way: a 20kg bag of flour costs 71.8% more than it did a year ago — official, verified, and the single largest driver of a poor family's food bill.
From field to table