BS: Price of flour

30 Oct 07 - 10:15 PM (#2183149)
Subject: BS: Price of flour
From: GUEST,Jim Martin

Has anyone noticed a huge increase recently?

My local baker here in Co. Clare, Eire complains price just risen 70% - and that was second hike recently!

Presume it's because of recent disastrous grain harvest in UK and un-precedented demand for grain products in the East as they are rapidly going over to Western diet.

Feels like the sky is about to fall!

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30 Oct 07 - 10:25 PM (#2183158)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Rapparee

This can't be good. I haven't bought flour recently, but I shouldn't be at all surprised if there were a similar price increase here in the US.

I have noticed that the cost of several things have swung sharply upwards (Diet Pepsi-Cola, for example, has gone from US$3.00 for 6 bottles to US$3.69 for 6 bottles in the last month, and that is one minor example.

The price of diesel, the fuel of the trucks and trains, has been higher than that of petrol for many months now. The prices are simply being passed on to the consumer.

And look for them to go higher.

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30 Oct 07 - 10:27 PM (#2183159)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: number 6

I haven't a clue as to why ... the price of wheat dropped today by $5.75 U.S.

But man o man ... soybean meal rose by $1.20 ... the sky is falling for me as this means it will cost more for our tofu.

biLL

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30 Oct 07 - 10:30 PM (#2183161)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: number 6

The price of soft drinks such as Pepsi, Coke etc. is rising because the prime sweetner used is corn syrup .... the rise in alternate corn based fuels is putting the squeese on the availability of corn.

biLL

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30 Oct 07 - 10:41 PM (#2183172)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: GUEST,Jim Martin

Sorry, forgot to mention the bio-fuel aspect to the equation!

Pepsi etc we can well do without - but corn!!!!!!!

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30 Oct 07 - 11:02 PM (#2183190)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: mg

Probably good news for some people, including those who shouldnt be eating it..and that is a whole lot of people of Northern European ancestry...who haven't evolved to handle it. And good news if corn syrup goes way up in price, which I believe we are heavily subsidizing anyway...add some trans fats and we can create totally unhealthy "food". So hopefully healthier grains for many people will stay moderate in price and people in other countries will not adapt our SAD diet and stick to traditional diets, if they have been healthy on them of course...mg

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30 Oct 07 - 11:30 PM (#2183199)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Ebbie

I haven't bought flour just recently- I started making my own bread a few months ago when the mid-price bread went up to $3.49 a loaf. I figure a loaf of homemade bread, including yeast, costs me maybe 40 cents.

What I *have* recently noticed is the rising price of milk. A half gallon of 2% in my local market went from $2.89 to $3.29. Now *that* is quite a percentage hike.

So I switched to 'Milkman', a dried milk product that is richer than most dried milk. It has recently gone up too but even now costs just over $2.00 for 1/2 gallon.

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31 Oct 07 - 12:33 AM (#2183220)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Store-bought bread hasn't moved upwards enough for me to notice.
A loaf of fresh-baked sourdough from the store ovens is $3.49 at Safeway, in Alberta, Canada.

A counter bread at Safeway, "Artisan Seven Grain Bread sliced" is $1.69 for 1 lb. Its contents are "Water, bread base (flour (wheat), rolled oats, sunflower seeds, soya grits, triticale flakes, flax seeds, sesame seeds, rye flakes, salt, vegetable oil (canola*), malted barley flour, inactive dry yeast, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono and diglycerides, dextrose, citric acid, ascorbic acid, enzymes), yeast **TDMK** made in a facility with peanuts and other allergens." Canola*- formerly rape seed oil.
What the price increases are on all of the other stuff besides flour, I will leave to you to calculate.

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31 Oct 07 - 12:41 AM (#2183222)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Stilly River Sage

Gargoyle, I like the King Arthur white whole wheat. I've been using that lately in my bread with a blend of white and whole wheat flours.

My "all purpose" flour prices have gone up. I bake bread about three times a week. For a long time the 5 pound bag at my modest little no-advertising store was 79 cents. But now it's up to about $1.19. A fifty percent increase.

Sugar has also gone way up, and they've gone back to selling four pound bags instead of five pound bags. For quite a while 5 pounds were $1.49. Now four pounds is about $1.79. This again is at my modest little grocery chain. The name brand stores are a lot more expensive.

Dairy has gone up also. An 8 oz cup of yogurt that used to cost .39 cents is now .50 cents. Cheese is through the roof (though it is more of a "value added" product than a lot of other dairy items).

SRS

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31 Oct 07 - 02:58 AM (#2183254)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Liz the Squeak

I've noticed a significant rise in the price of bread - from 89pence to £1.05 in some cases. The price of ordinary plain flour has also gone from 19pence (Sainsbury's Basic range, 2kg bag) to 31pence, almost double in price.

Trying to buy sugar yesterday for jam making purposes, the supermarket was bereft of any but specialist sugars (caster, brown, pectin added jam sugar), and they were slightly more expensive than the last time I bought sugar a few months ago.

It has been a fairly crappy harvest in the UK for wheat, but our soft fruits have done remarkably well - 10.lbs of sloes from just one picking and that was by two short people. If we'd had a tall person, a hooked stick, wellies or a step ladder, we'd have cleared 20lbs and not got half of the fruit available.

LTS

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31 Oct 07 - 06:39 AM (#2183316)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: TheSnail

Ah, just the opportunity I was looking for. What is this "All Purpose" flour I keep finding in internet recipes? In the UK we have plain, self-raising, strong white and stoneground (= whole meal) and various permutations on those.

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31 Oct 07 - 07:54 AM (#2183350)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Sooz

There are so many uses of flour that many different characteristics are needed. Different wheat varieties have different amounts of protein so the flour made from them has different uses. eg to make bread you need a very high protein flour (known as "strong"). Cakes biscuits and pasta need less protein to give the structure we expect in the finished product.
"All purpose flour" has always confused me as well, I've always assumed its what we call "plain" in the UK.

I have also noticed that the price has gone up enormously recently.

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31 Oct 07 - 08:43 AM (#2183394)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Stilly River Sage

All Purpose Flour is just what it says--you can get away with using it across several types of baking, if you only want to fool with one main type of flour. But it is no doubt the grain that is ground a standard amount (compared to cake flour is a finer texture or many "whole grains" that are coarser). No leavening added, and it is often "bleached" (when I find unbleached flour for a comparable price I buy it instead. My little store doesn't carry it, alas.)

I keep a container of white flour, and one of whole wheat. I don't bake cakes often so I don't keep that kind of flour here. And there are many others--you can grind all sorts of things into a powdery consistency.

This doesn't touch on what the additives are. . .

SRS

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31 Oct 07 - 09:39 AM (#2183433)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Rapparee

I mentioned diet Pepsi because I'd just bought some -- being diabetic I watch for things with corn and other sweetners, and of the diet soft drinks diet Pepsi is about the only one I can stand. No, I don't drink very much of it; it's a very "once in a while" thing (like single malt Irish or Scotch).

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31 Oct 07 - 10:15 AM (#2183467)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: TheSnail

Stilly River Sage

All Purpose Flour is just what it says

Sounds as if it's what we call "plain" in the UK, unleavened cake flour.
Then there's "brown". This may be whole wheat with the fibrous bits taken out but I can't help suspecting it's white flour dyed brown to make it look "organic".

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31 Oct 07 - 10:21 AM (#2183469)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: John MacKenzie

What would be the point of that SRS, after it is bleached to make it white in the first place. That's why white flour is so bad for you.
G

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31 Oct 07 - 10:21 AM (#2183470)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Peace

I once lived in a settlement in Canada's Northwest Territories. Here are some costs I recall.

Dozen eggs      $4.50
Two liters milk       $8.25
One apple or orange or banana       $1.00 each
Loaf of sliced bread       $4.00-$5.00
Five pound beef roast (chuck/cheap cut)       $40.00


Bon appetit!

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31 Oct 07 - 11:02 AM (#2183488)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: jeffp

All purpose flour is generally a blend of bread (strong) flour and cake flour. Cake flour is a low-protein flour that is less likely to produce glutens. Bread flour, being high in protein has a higher gluten producing potential. All purpose falls somewhere in the middle. Self-rising flour is simply flour with baking powder added.

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31 Oct 07 - 11:37 AM (#2183526)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Metchosin

I haven't purchased a sack of flour since last spring, but I haven't noticed any recent increase in the price of bread here on Vancouver Island. The local bakery, white unsliced bread I buy is 99 cents Cdn a loaf. They are not huge loaves, but they are the closest to tasting home baked that I can find. The large commercial bakery multigrain loaves, which we also get, are longer, denser and cost around $4.39 Cdn per loaf.

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31 Oct 07 - 03:23 PM (#2183667)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Looking at a bag of 'original, all-purpose' flour (Canadian, Robin Hood), it says' "Enriched and pre-sifted, Ingredients wheat flour, amylase, benzoyl peroxide, ascorbic acid, Niacin, iron, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid."
We used to make cakes and got a 'cake' flour for that, but go to a bakery for those now.

Haven't heard anyone here complain about a rise in price.

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31 Oct 07 - 03:39 PM (#2183679)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Peace

By adding yeast the dough will rise more, too.

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31 Oct 07 - 04:50 PM (#2183736)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Stilly River Sage

Giok, it was someone else who mentioned dying white flour, not me.

I prefer unbleached, it has one less step (at least!) involved and is probably healthier. But it can cost a lot more and depending on the proximity to payday, I often go with the less expensive bleached flour. When I find unbleached on sale I buy extra and keep some in the freezer. If I could get Spelt flour for a lower price I'd use that a lot more often. As it is, if I'm near the store that has the most reasonable price and I have the cash to buy it, I do. That's probably much healthier than the "regular" all purpose flour.

SRS

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31 Oct 07 - 08:37 PM (#2183882)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: TheSnail

Stilly River Sage

Giok, it was someone else who mentioned dying white flour, not me.

It was me. It seems I was half right.

According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2198586

This is not normally suitable for making a good bread unless it is a strong brown flour, but it is worth mentioning here as the brown in its name will usually be caramel. Unless the packaging tells you otherwise, it is roller-milled bleached flour with caramel and sometimes some bran added. This is another reconstituted flour.

but according to http://www.flourandgrain.com/explorers/grainChainClub/faqs.htm

What is an extraction rate?
All flours are classified according to the percentage of wheat grain present. This is known as the extraction rate. Wholemeal flour contains the whole grain and is therefore a 100% extraction flour. Brown flour contains about 85% of the grain and white flour between 75-80% extraction.

Read the small print on the bag.

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01 Nov 07 - 01:50 AM (#2184029)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Liz the Squeak

It's ironic that it used to be only the rich who could afford the finer milled flour that went into 'white bread' and the poor had to have the rough or coarsly ground flour that made 'brown bread'.

Now white plastic bread is generic and it's the brown stuff with the bits left in that costs a lot.

Since WWI, British millers and breadmakers used flour with added chalk powder to make it whiter and give the people added calcium, a necessity with the WWII rationing.

I once toured a flour mill when I was 18 (big modern jobby owned by Hovis) and I'm surprised at how much I retained from that visit!

Did you know that mills are highly explosive?

All the tiny particles of flour hang in the air. Add a lighted match to that and it's kerblooey - goodbye flour mill. Could this be a reason they were all built so far out of town and down their own little lanes?

LTS

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01 Nov 07 - 05:46 AM (#2184088)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: sian, west wales

I grew up in a town with two flour mills right in town - one of them (the Maple Leaf Mill) was once the largest of its kind in the British Empire. When I was about 10, it caught on fire and everyone rushed down to the lakefront to watch the blaze - it was on the Welland Canal, where it empties into Lake Erie, Ontario. Everyone, that is, except the families who had people working there. The men all escaped but phoned home to tell their families to get into the basements and stay there because, as Liz points out, if the fire got to the flour storage silos, the whole town would have kerblooied. (Kerblooied?) Including us on the shore.

Spectacular sight, though. Fireboats came to help from Buffalo.

When the other mill, The Robin Hood, caught fire, another time, the whole town smelled of chocolate cake for days. It didn't mill flour; it prepared cake mixes 'n' stuff so when the fire hoses got going, the mill got baking ...

Apart from the bread problems arising (sic) from the grain shortages, I've also been told by my butcher that anyone wanting a Christmas fowl better order them in advance as, apparently, a lot of the smaller farmers have gone out of production due to the cost of grain feeds this year.

sian

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01 Nov 07 - 08:11 AM (#2184151)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: GUEST

I use a lot of flour at this time of year when making my salt dough, and for many years I have used the more expensive stuff, as I find that it works better (for me, anyway). Well it's just gone up about 25%. One of the supermarkets had an offer on the two main brands, and I just managed to get the last 4 bags of the one I like. I saw a guy going out with a trolley full of it! It used to be about 70p a bag earlier this year, then it went to about 85p, and now it's over £1.

As regards the explosive nature of flour - read "Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett!

Andrea

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01 Nov 07 - 08:22 AM (#2184160)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: GUEST,SINS

Powdered milk??? YUK Remember Starlac? My mother used to mix it with whole milk to save money. Disgusting stuff. But I don't use milk at all not even in coffee or on cereal. Tom and Linn bring their own and Kendall uses coffee creamer powder.

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01 Nov 07 - 01:25 PM (#2184389)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Stilly River Sage

I found an old Harvest Gold (color) freezer at an estate sale last year. Got it for a song. That's what I use for my shopping surplus these days; flour, yeast, veggies, meat. I heard a report on the news this morning about the impact of ethanol on the food prices in the market (forcing it up as more farmers grow corn to get the subsidies and the cheap ethanol from Brazil is blocked to keep the inflated ethanol prices in the U.S. high).

Crazy.

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01 Nov 07 - 06:48 PM (#2184600)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: The Sandman

well, has the price of rye gone up?

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01 Nov 07 - 07:18 PM (#2184619)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Checked the prices of bleached and unbleached flour at the Safeway in Calgary, Alberta, today.
$8.00 for 10 kg. your choice this week, but regularly $10.00 each. Smaller bags showed a differential of 10% with bleached the lower.
A loaf of sourdough was down to $2.19 and a loaf of 12-grain was at $1.99/loaf.
A baker there said he hadn't heard of any important price changes for some time.
I have a scone recipe I like but have always used all-purpose; I bought a 2kg bag of unbleached and will try it for a change.

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02 Nov 07 - 01:05 AM (#2184779)
Subject: RE: BS: Price of flour
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Too many items in this thread to respond to at one time:

Thank you SRS - you beat me by 50% on the production of bread.

Talking BREAD - Gluton (a wheat protein) is the primary portion for making "Western Style" (anything guests will eat...and me too....and the birds also given the three burnt loaves left under a light pole three weeks ago.)

Dear friends in the Netherlands have difficulty with home-baked-bread. Difficulty solved, the peat bog (virtually all of Holland is bog) changes the acid/base for gluton.

On YouTube - look up the noodle demonstrations from China - it is the Gluton that allows the strands to develop.

Folks and Profesors and Bakers have devoted their lives to flour/bread.

For myself....I soak 1 cup seven grain overnight to add to 50/50 whole/bread flour and add 28 grams (one ounce) soy powder with dry milk equal to one quart....brewer's yeast/wheat germ is left out....but otherwise it is the Cornell University Staff of Life.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

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