The flour shortage

[JinglingHellsBells]

Can anyone shed any light on this?

I can't get my head round why it's flown off the shelves. (Someone did say parents making play dough or whatever but not convinced.)

Is everyone baking like mad out of boredom?

Or- and this was my first thought- did everyone panic, think what they would need if they were locked down with no food for weeks and all think..

Ta dah! We need flour to make bread - one of life's essential foods.

Given there is no shortage of bread, cakes or baked good in the supermarkets, I really don't understand. Even if people normally do a bit of baking each week, it doesn't explain the huge shortage.

It doesn't affect me much personally as I am gluten-free, and can use other flours, but it's just weird.

[joystir59]

I've just got in a stock of yeast and various flours because longer term we may have a food supply issue. I've also got other dried and canned goods for the same reason. I haven't got massive amounts just some.

[Mmsnet101]

Loafs of bread don't last long when you have DC at home for lunches etc. You can only buy so many in each shop and you don't can't go shopping just for bread every few days. So people are taking to trying baking to distract kids and keep a supply.

As others have said, no shortages in bulk orders (I work in the food industry, we're desperately trying to put a machine back in action which can package bulk into smaller quantities, in order to keep the business afloat. The machine was decommissioned a few years ago as there just wasn't the demand for it).

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

I prefer to bake my own bread, pizza, pastries. I know what exactly goes into them, I have perfected my recipes, and I hate most shop bought bread.

My toddler eats a lot of bread/floury goods like pancakes, she is usually 5 days a week in nursery, now she is at home with me, so I need to use more flour for family food as well.

[Thedogshow]

I find this very confusing, that you think your mum’s wish for flour is greater than anyone else’s...?!
It’s pretty hard work for parents stuck in the house with preschool children all day. They may be able to go for a short walk but that’s still about 11 hours at home with young children. And many families have to isolate too due to health conditions. Lots of people like baking and do it regularly, parents, non parents, young and old, or would if they weren’t out at work most of the time.
It’s a shame your mum is struggling to get flour, but it’s a shame for all the other people who want it too. Everyone’s in the same boat and no one has any special entitlement to the flour as far as I can see.

[Madcats]

I always like to have at least a kg of plain and SR flour in the cupboard and I had just bought new bags before lockdown. I am working my way through the flour languishing at the back of our carousel (trying some 3 year old French stuff, having acquired some yeast).

Today I resorted to buying 16kg sacks to split with neighbours. The price of strong flour in the self scoop places was £££.

Our local M&S is selling sacks of pasta and rice - I wish they would do the same for flour!

I ended up at Bfp express. Not the cheapest, but at least they had stock.

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

@VenusTiger Try souordough starter, I started mine last week to bypass the lack of yeast.

[Jdabbers]

@VivaLeBeaver
I was having This problem also. Doves Farm are now doing a box of flour, pasta and other stuff delivered to your door. It's available on their website

[Barbie222]

@OrganTransplant123

That was @Iamthewombat 'a post. If something's in bold, it's generally a copy and paste.

I'm agreeing with you...?

[eeeyoresmiles]

I expect the same amount of flour is being eaten as has ever been eaten, it's just that less of it is being bought pre-cooked (into bread or cakes or restaurant meals or whatever), and more is now being bought by consumers directly as flour. The more wholesalers can switch to supplying consumers, the less of a supply issue there will be.

Anyone wanting to avoid shops might decide to make more of their own bread for the reasons others have given, that it doesn't keep and you can't buy two weeks worth ready-made, so you either have to freeze it or shop more often.

[Lelivre]

I don’t bake but I bought in GF flour in advance in case I could not get GF bread. Normally a rare purchase for me.

I can’t get a weekly delivery so we will be making our own bread this week something I never do. Also I thought it would be a good activity for the kids. However I had SF flour not plain. Not a baker you see! Took our walk today and found GF flour in a Tesco metro full shelves all types present.

[Minster2012]

I genuinely don’t understand this thread. Why is it bad for those of us that didn’t buy much flour before to buy more now for various reasons? And I’m not on about a lot.

I never usually bake. But I’m on the extremely vulnerable list due to 10years worth of immunotherapy & Addison’s disease. But OH working & have 21 month old DS. He’s not much interested in baking yet has bad eczema, an egg, fish & oat allergy & OH trying to do our food shopping has made our food bill go through the roof. He doesn’t know where things are in the shops, I usually use 3 supermarkets to get our shopping, he can’t. So I’m trying to make snacks for DS to stop him buying ridiculous “nakd” snack bars & fruit bars at £0.90each 🤷‍♀️
He eats 6 pieces of fruit a day. & loads of bread. That’s just DS. Hubby is 6’6”.
So far I’ve bought 1 3.5kg white bread Flour & 1 x 1kg plain flour. Not found self raising but we can get it
We are East Yorkshire

[OrganTransplant123]

Sorry Barbie222 !! I got confused in my annoyance.

Iamthewombat I don’t understand your point at all. Being vulnerable has no bearing at all on either flour demand or breadmaker ownership.

[swg1]

@Iamthewombat I think you might be surprised by how many people have a breadmaker that's been used once stuck at the back of a gadget cupboard. Ours was hiding with such important items as the crepe maker, the ice cream maker and of course the spiraliser.

[CeeJay81]

As others have said it's the packaging for small bags of flour that's the issue. Go to the cash and carry and you can get industrial sizes bags. The hotels, cafes etc they supply are closed, so theyll have loads of it.

[Hagbeth]

I baked my own bread for 20 years. I managed to get a 16kg bag online. Luckily I bought 10kg last month so haven’t run out 🙂

[blossombabies]

@ymmiblue i live in the UK? there seems to be loads of eastern european shops in pretty much every town/city i've been in the UK?

[NoWordForFluffy]

eBay has dried yeast at a reasonable price.

I got bread and plain flour in massive sacks from a cake decorating supplier online. There's no flour available where I live - of any description - and no yeast. I got caster and icing sugar in Aldi today.

[CeibaTree]

We usually use around a bag a month, but we are on our fourth bag now since lockdown began as we have got time to bake bread and cakes. We only use spelt flour and buy directly from Sharpham Park so we haven't been contributing to the flour shortage in shops though. Regarding the flour, (and baking powder + yeast) shortages, it's probably simply a similar thing - more people are home baking right now 👩🏽‍🍳

[Arrowfanatic]

I always bake the kids birthday cakes, have done for the last 11 years. My eldest birthday was 2 days after lock down started so I went off to find SR flour & eggs to make her cake as always & couldn't get any! I had to buy one of those nasty premade birthday cakes which sadly the kids hated.

My sons birthday is next (and still during lockdown) so you can bet as soon as I came across baking essentials I stocked up! Still cant find eggs though 🙄

[springsummer22]

How very strange to think that because we need to shield we should not start baking bread. We bought a new bread maker in Feb as part of our preparations in case of lockdown and have made bread every 2 days since early lockdown. Large family to feed and as we are only getting a weekly delivery we would otherwise have to eat long life sliced type bread. Prior to pandemic we would buy fresh bread daily at weekends and eat at school/work in the week. OP - I have no idea why you think it is just 90 year olds that cant go out for walk or run or to the park - there are thousands and thousands of young children and teens too that have to shield and every age of adult not just those in their 90s.

[feesh]

We normally buy packaged bread, but have switched to making our own now so that we don’t have to go to the shops (ever). Can’t get bread flour for love nor money at the moment though (am not in the U.K. by the way).

[Daftasabroom]

Another one here for the 16kg catering packs. We got ours from one of the local food service companies, minimum order of £50 so stocked up on other bits as well. At 500g per loaf 16kg only lasts a month.

[Bluebooby]

I wasn't able to get hold of plain or self raising flour for nearly two months. I eventually found a giant sack of it (5kg) in a small Turkish grocers near our town centre. We've had that in the house for about a week, but I'm scared to open it because it's so huge that I don't know how I'll store it. The sack is currently sitting on the kitchen table. Over a month of searching for flour and now I've got more than I know what to do with, and I'm worried about weevils!

In normal times we do get through a fair amount of flour. I make cakes, biscuits or brownies etc probably every other week, and we bake bread at least twice a week or more. I need to get over my fear of opening the giant sack and then I'll start baking again.

[Iamthewombat]

I don’t understand your point at all. Being vulnerable has no bearing at all on either flour demand or breadmaker ownership.

You are obviously on a crusade and looking for reasons to get upset on behalf of ‘vulnerable people’ everywhere. Do you stalk threads looking for reasons to take offence? I’ll spell it out again, shall I?

• somebody suggested that flour sales had gone up because, amongst other things, ‘vulnerable people’ had started to buy flour to make bread with.
  

• in response to which, I said that it would be pretty surprising if a large group of people who had never made bread before suddenly decided that now was the time to start making bread. Why would you bother, if you had never done it before and didn’t need to? It wouldn’t be out of necessity because bread is available in shops.
  

So although you can’t see it, and although you quoted the wrong poster, I hope you now understand that I am in full agreement with the principle that being vulnerable is not synonymous with an increased demand for bread flour.

[waterjungle]

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/coronavirus-lockdown-flour-shops-shortages-explained-a9457351.html

I short a 94% increase in demand and only 4% of flour goes to domestic baking. The rest gets sold in big volume bags. Packing small quantities is a different type of production.