State media are reporting a bread shortage in Zimbabwe's capital, where a major bread-making factory shut down this week.

The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation says Lobel's bakery is struggling with a huge debt, and will be closed for the next two months while it tries to arrange new financing from a potential investor.

ZBC says the closure of Lobel's and another breadmaker, Superbake, have led to shortages in Harare.

An independent Zimbabwean newspaper, News Day, reports the shortage amounts to 150,000 loaves of bread per day.

Zimbabwe has suffered recurring food shortages because of persistent economic problems over the past decade.

Critics blame the troubles on policies of President Robert Mugabe, especially a land reform program that took land from white commercial farmers for transfer to blacks.

Agricultural production plunged after the seizures began, depriving the government of a key source of revenue.

More recently, the government has pushed a so-called “indigenization” law that requires companies to give a majority stake to blacks.

Mr. Mugabe and his supporters defend the measures as undoing the wrongs of the colonial era. The president blames the economic problems on interference from former colonial power Britain and the United States.