Prices of sugar have doubled since the beginning of the month.
A two-kilo packet of sugar that was in a few months selling at an average of Sh200 is now retailing at Sh420.
Most customers are now preferring to buy a kilo of sugar rather than the common 2kg packet due to the high cost.
A spot check done by naihaps.com on May 16, showed that the cheapest brand of sugar in the local supermarket is selling at Sh189 per one-kilo packet.
In one of the supermarkets, a kilo of branded sugar is selling at Sh189, per one-kilo while another different brand is selling at Sh350 per 2kg packet but a customer is limited to buying a maximum of two packets.
At another local supermarket, its branded sugar is retailing at Sh365 per two-kilo, Kabras is selling at Sh420 for a two-kilo packet while a one-kilo packet of Mumias sugar is selling at Sh220.
The high price of the commodity comes after duty-free sugar imports, which were allowed into Kenya from January, have failed to cool off high retail prices.
Data from the Sugar Directorate indicates that the volumes imported between January and March were 93,000 tonnes against 46,000 in a similar period last year.
The sharp increase in import volumes was on the back of the waiver on duty to allow the shipping of cheap commodities to address a shortage that has kept prices high.
Duty-free import of sugar is part of a wider government plan to lower the high cost of goods.
Locally, production has been inhibited by diminishing cane supply on the farms. The shortage of cane has seen millers grapple with the little available, pushing the price of a tonne of the commodity from Ksh4,584 ($33.58), which is the recommended price by the sugar directorate, to Sh5,250 ($38.46).
The diminishing supply of cane to factories, which has cut down on production activities, saw the total sugar bagged in the review period decline by 26 percent to 49,761 tonnes. The decline in production will compel consumption due to low supply in the market.
The first two vessels with more than 42,000 tonnes of sugar docked in February to ease the pain of the decline in production by local millers.
The government opened an import window in December that would see traders ship in 100,000 tonnes of sugar outside of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) region to curb an imminent shortage in the country that had pushed up the cost of the sweetener to Sh312 ($2.29) for a two-kilo packet.
The state has also allowed the Kenya National Trading Corporation to import a further 200,000 tonnes duty-free.
