Borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor has rarely been so contentious in Egypt.
At supermarkets across the country sugar has all but vanished, prompting media talk of a crisis and pushing the state to rapidly increase imports despite an acute dollar shortage and soaring global prices of the sweetener.
Egypt consumes around 3 million tonnes of sugar annually but produces just over 2 million tonnes, with the gap filled by imports, usually between July and October when local beet and sugar cane supplies have wound down.
But traders said high global sugar prices, which surged 50 percent over the past year, combined with a rising black market rate for dollars has made it too expensive and risky for many importers to obtain sugar in recent months.
Importers have no choice but to turn to the black market to get dollars, as banks ration meager supplies, paying 15 Egyptian pounds or more per dollar versus an official rate of 8.8. At such rates, more and more traders say they can no longer buy.
"No one is willing to source dollars for this. It is way too expensive," one sugar trader said.
In the absence of steady imports, sugar supplies have all but dried up, shop owners, commodity traders, and producers of sugary foodstuffs told Reuters.
"It's been four weeks since we've had sugar at any of the branches," said Aly Ibrahim Aly, a manager at Metro Market, one of Egypt's largest supermarket chains.
Other shops across Cairo told Reuters they were getting just a small fraction of their needs, with stocks sold out within the hour they arrive as customers fight over bags that have doubled in price in recent weeks.
"I just want to make a cup of tea and I can't," one shopkeeper said. He echoed growing complaints from the public about rising prices and shortages even as the country looks to implement further austerity measures ahead of a $12 billion IMF lending program granted preliminary approval in August.