Flour - where has all the flour gone?

[NemophilistRebel]

Are people hoarding it? It’s been 4 weeks since I’ve managed to get any

Ideally bread flour but I’d settle for plain

I tried doves farm direct but they say they’ve been so busy they have stopped selling to public too

Today I learned there’s a weevil called

The confused flour beetle, aka Tribolium confusum
🌾

this is what he did!

Hurray Bestiswest! Great minds think alike

Personally, I think that supermarkets usually sell comparatively small amounts of baking ingredients so even a small increase in sales puts their ‘just in time’ ordering systems into a mess. The supermarket I was in on Saturday had small amounts of sugar, strong and plain flour but no yeast or eggs.

The other factor is that a loaf of home made bread will probably get eaten a lot more quickly than a generic supermarket sliced loaf that usually lasts almost a week when used for sandwiches at lunchtime so it’s quite easy for a family to get through several home made loaves.

I realise not being able to buy flour is frustrating for people who bake regularly but one of the few positives of all this is children (or anyone of any age) discovering the excitement of cooking and baking.

I got some starter from a friend but this looks easy to follow

www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe

Thank you @drspouse

I bought some in a little ship - like a Nisa but wasn't called that. A colleague wanted plain flour and she had given me an Avon lipstick and liner that didn;t suit her so I gave her some flour and a tin of beans (bloody expensive when you are used to Supermarket own!) as a thank you!

Excellent trade!

Forgot to say, her daughter was after some baked beans so that's why I added them!

Where has all the flour gone,
Gone to stockpiles every one
When will then ever learn....

The other factor is that a loaf of home made bread will probably get eaten a lot more quickly than a generic supermarket sliced loaf

Yes, I'm making a loaf a day.

There ere a couple of other threads about sourdough in the last week,

To save flour and yeast I’ve also made a starter and it will work with just a few spoons of flour so you don’t always have to use lots of flour on a starter. I use a Hugh FW starter and only a third of his suggested amounts. The trick is to pick up the yeasts in the air so I walk around the house whilst whisking vigourously. 😆

We are also on a loaf a day. It goes before it’s even cool. Freshly baked bread is very comforting.

I managed to get plain and strong flour last week. Still no SR. I know you can add baking powder to plain but I never manage to get it right! It’s annoying me as we cook and bake loads and it’s probably being bought up by people who never do. I realise this is irrational and I don’t have any “right” to the flour over anyone else but it’s annoying me anyway

I’ve never tried it and maybe now there will be an issue with it but I have heard that supermarket bakeries can give you yeast

Hope the people hoarding it and not using it get weevils 😈

I think many supermarkets shut their fresh bakery sections.

I have a spare unopened bag of wholewheat bread flour if anyone near Winchester wants it 😂 husband brought it home so pleased with himself saying it was in case we couldn’t get hold of bread I could make some (notice he didn’t volunteer to make it) then I opened the cupboard and showed him that I already had a whole bag of bread flour which I’ve had for quite a while.

Far far away!!! (Singing it)
But seriously though where the fuck has the flour gone!? Had my mum send me some flour the other day as she had some and little did I realise she had sent me flour which was 3 years out of date!!! Word of warning dont use flour 3 years out of date in a cake, the cake ends up shit!!!

Sorry that might be partly our fault (as in teachers!) We suggested parents make playdough using flour and do making as a wonderful maths and learning activity! Also suggested using it on a tray to write letters in using fingers.
Sorry!

As an ex chef now food wholesaler I can agree that we have become a nation of (wannabe) bread makers. We have sold out of all varieties of flour up to 16kg bags. Some customers asking for x8-10 bags ar at a time when we managed to source any. Pasta similarly. I think many families are eating pasta shapes they'd not previously heard of.
Fruit and veg becoming increasingly expensive to purchase for us with the big guys pre buying before it even arrives. I've paid £1.75 wholesale for cauliflower today. It's hard for us to make even any sort of
(minimal) profit.

Remember you can make perfectly gorgeous bread with good old self raising. Or convert yr plain into SR if you have none.
(150g flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp bicarb)
Xx

Do you think people are actually making bread and pasta with it or just keeping it in the cupboard or making cakes?

I can’t get any, I’m coeliac and can’t use normal flour, and there’s no gluten free flour anywhere, and no shops can give me any clue when they’ll have it in stock, which means driving shop to shop to find it

I bought a couple of small bags before Brexit that have kept, and topped up again before the panic buying. But have been baking a loaf every day so we don’t have to go out. Like someone upthread said, supermarkets don’t keep huge supplies, so it doesn’t take much extra buying for it to vanish.

We go through 500g for every loaf, so if other people are doing the same 2-3 bags won’t have a chance to go weevily, they’ll last a week or two.

I got a 16kg bag delivered today from a local eco company, I make a loaf everyday so always have flour and yeast in.

Asda had some gluten free flour in the other day I bought one bag left the other two my fingers twitched though I wanted to buy TWO!! It's been weeks since I could find any