Why wouldn't bread be cheaper and better if we had a government bureaucrat (a minister for bread) dedicated to managing the prices of bread and everything that goes into making it?

The economist Russ Roberts has a wonderful video on how emergent order and prices work, and why we probably don't want a minister for bread:

Price signals and the role they play in economies are probably some of the most important ideas I've learned about in the last five years.

I suspect we will always be tempted to assume that a controlled economy, with a dedicated minister for bread, will be more efficient and just than a market economy coordinated by prices. We tend to believe that human agency and control improves everything, and we are usually right. But in this case a market of self interested actors works not just a little better, but massively better.