This April was a bitter pill to swallow for sweet makers
At the turn of the year, sweet makers were impatient for the month of April to arrive.
This year, coincidentally, their two major selling events -- Shab-e-Barat and Pahela Baishakh -- fell in the April and that too just a week apart.
They were bracing for a bumper April, but transpired was a cruel demonstration of the saying 'Man proposes, God disposes'.
Sweet makers have had their most bitter experience this year as demand hit rock bottom owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
The holy Shab-e-Barat, the night of fortune and forgiveness, is an occasion when special prayers and doa are organised at mosques and homes and sweets are distributed among the devotees and sent to relatives.
Similarly, the sale of sweet surges on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh, the first day of the Bangla new year that falls on April 14, thanks to the growing corporate culture of sending sweets to clients and others.
Between April 9 and April 17 last year, sweet makers sold as much as 100 tonnes of sweet items worth about Tk 3 crore per day.
"The two main sweet-selling events have been hit hard this year due to coronavirus," said Kamruzzaman Kamal, director for marketing at Pran-RFL, which owns the Mithai brand. Mithai has 43 showrooms across the country.
Because of the pandemic, all the sweet shops have remained closed since March 25 in line with a government order, which has enforced countrywide lockdown to flatten the curve of coronavirus that has so far infected 621 and killed 34 in Bangladesh.
Sweetmeat is not a basic food and people are not in a joyous mood, so its sales have dropped.
Premium Sweets, a high-end brand in the segment, used to sell several tonnes of sweet on the occasion of Pahela Baishakh, but its business has totally tanked this year, said Mahbubur Rahman Bakul, head of corporate affairs of the company.
Pahela Baishakh is the major occasion for sweet makers, he said.
"We are passing hard times because of the lack of production and sales."
Premium Sweets has 15 outlets in Dhaka and five outlets in Canada.
"Business fell in both countries," Bakul said, adding that the company is paying salaries by bringing money from the showrooms in Canada as the domestic outlets are not making any money.
This year, Well Food has not recorded any sales ahead of Shab-e-Barat, whereas it normally sells about two tonnes of sweetmeats on the night, said Syed Nurul Islam, chairman of the group.
Well Food is a chain shop that sells different types of sweetmeat and bakery items.
According to Islam, Well Food has emphasised on the safety of its staff, so the group has not received any internal order.
The company has already cancelled many orders for the upcoming Pahela Baishakh too, he said.
"Because of the pandemic, very few people want to buy sweets."
This year, sweet sales plunged on the occasion of Shab-e-Barat as no restaurants were open and mosques were reluctant to arrange special prayers and doa, said Rejaul Karim Sharker Robin, secretary general of the Bangladesh Restaurant Owner's Association.
According to industry insiders, the sales of sweetmeat rise to Tk 50 crore on the night of Shab-e-Barat.
Restaurants and bakeries missed the business this year, said Robin, also the owner of Shaikat Hotel in Bogura.
"This was the day when our premier sweet items sell the most. But there were no sales on the two major occasions. We have not seen such a situation in our lifetime."
The business loss during the pandemic will impact many small hotel and restaurant owners, he added.
According to the association, there are about 60,000 restaurants and bakeries in Bangladesh and almost all of them make sweets and jilapi on the day as demand explodes.
Mohammad Selim, president of Rahmatpur Mosque Committee in Narayanganj, normally buys 60 to 70 kilograms of jilapi for Shab-e-Barat night every year on behalf of the mosque. But this year he bought none.
"All the mosques followed the government direction on avoiding religious gatherings. So, we had no reason to buy sweetmeats," he said.
There are about 350,000 mosques in Bangladesh, according to Mohammad Anwar Hossain, senior information officer of the religious affairs ministry.
Mahmudul Hasan, a citizen of Khulna, normally holds a special doa at his house on Shab-e-Barat as the night is considered holy. He sends some sweets to the houses of relatives. "But this year, I had not arranged such doa."
"The loss of the sweet makers is unexplainable as they have failed to catch the main occasion of Pahela Baishakh," said Mohammed Ali, president of the Bangladesh Sweets Manufacturers Association and owner of Muslim Sweets, a popular brand.
"All outlets of all brands selling sweets have been shut due to the lockdown. How will the sweet makers sell the items?"
People are panicking because of the rising cases of coronavirus infections so they are not buying sweets, he said.
Corporate houses give advance order for sweets ahead of Pahela Baishakh, but the situation is different now.
"There is no way we could manage to recover the losses," Ali said.
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