Lemmy Chikomo, director of operations for Lobels Bread, told the Harare newspaper, The Herald, more than 1,700 workers had been laid off because of the shortage.

"Flour availability has deteriorated and this has forced us to use our strategic stocks since May. Now we are only left with two days' supply," Chikomo said. "We have used all the 4,000 tons of flour that we had as reserve stock."

The newspaper said there were 36,000 tons of wheat grounded in Beira, Mozambique, because of foreign currency constraints.

Lobels normally requires 200 tons of wheat daily to produce up to 300,000 loaves, the report said.

Last week, a BBC correspondent reported blame for the Zimbabwean dollar's decline was widely placed on Zimbabwean oil importers, who reportedly were buying up all the U.S. dollars they could find in the country where inflation is running at almost 140 percent.