Big Brother winner Luke Anderson thought there was a typo on the latest electricity bill for his Welsh bakery. The 2012 winner made dreams become reality when he opened Cravin' with his wife Jaime-Lee in Mold last year.
But like many businesses they have seen energy bills soar, and theirs have soared from around £400 a month to an eye-watering £1,600
Dad-of-two Luke shared his shock on social media after receiving their latest energy bill, as he warned that high streets will become "empty and soulless".
He said: "When we first chose our energy provider we shopped around for the most reasonable price. We thought that it must have been a typo or error.
"To say we were shocked is an understatement. The general consensus with local small business owners is that the government doesn’t care about us family run shops.
"Very soon the high street will be empty and soulless because people would rather spend money in Starbucks or Costa." The price hike means they will have to earn roughly £50 every day just to cover this one cost per month.
However, with almost everything rising in price, the couple will have to look into ways of keeping these sky-high bills under some sort of control. Luke said: "Of course we are concerned for the future, just like most.
"Not only are the energy prices surging, we are also contending with the cost of butter doubling, flour and egg prices are soaring too. We are determined to keep our prices fair for our customers.
"We have a tariff that is lower at [certain times] so I will have to resort to baking late into the evening instead of early mornings," said Luke. Along with switching off the sockets at the wall and only having the lights on when it's dark, the baker said that "candles might be an option at this rate".
Currently, the Citizen's Advice website has explained that the UK Government's Energy Bill Relief Scheme is designed to support small businesses with energy costs from October 2022 to March 2023 by automatically applying a discount to those eligible. To calculate the discount, the Government uses an estimated wholesale portion of the unit price businesses would be paying this winter compared to a baseline ‘government supported price’ of £211 per megawatt hour (MWh) for electricity and £75 per MWh for gas.
For most, this discount will not be enough to trim off the inflated costs. Luke told North Wales Live how more business owners need to speak out about the lack of support they're receiving from the Government.
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