Hi, I went to my local bulk food store and priced out the wheat berries vs. the commercial bread flour. Wheat berries are almost double the price. Why? You would think that the overhead on the commercial flour would make it a lot more expensive. Why does it cost so much more just to buy the berries and do the rest of the flour processing yourself?
This has always bothered me too. I assume it's just a matter of supply and demand. If you are fortunate enough to live where wheat is grown, it's a lot cheaper to buy direct. If you aren't so fortunate, the shipping cost is prohibitive.
try to buy through a wholesale source ie. bakery or restaurant adds things to order for me (huge savings). But if I were buying whole wheat berries (1.19/lb retail) compared to say a bag of organic King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour (5lb/$6.99 = $1.40/lb) But this is comparing two equal quality products sold in the same store. Maybe the quality level between the two products you saw were quite different.
It's quite common that local flours/grains are priced up quite a bit once put in a market. For example a local bakery mills and fills bulk bins in the local markets with local wheat and rye and it's $2.99/lb. You can buy the same wheat berries brought by the farmer and not the bakery and it's $1.19/lb. If you buy direct from the farmer it's $1/lb and if you buy 300+lbs it goes down to $.0.75/lb.
That said and done. Gourmet markets particularly have quite a market up on bulk dry goods. They generally get it at better prices than most other commercial food places because they do such large volume and then they price it at 2x it's cost. If you want decent priced whole grain as previously mentioned try going direct to source. Even if that means jumping on a local bakeries order.
Josh
Winco but they are at least $1.19 pound at Whole Foods and Sprouts, Winco sells bin already milled rye and spelt but do not carry these as whole berries forcing me to spend a much higher price at WF and Sprouts for them - its a big rip off but they don't sell much rye and spelt berries either. I sometimes think I am the only one buying them. I have been trying to get WInco to carry rye and spelt whole berries and maybe if others ask for it too they will do so
This is our local discount bulk food store, which makes it really odd. Maybe its a supply and demand thing, or maybe they get more money if they sell the wheat berries off in parts, because you can also buy the germ, bran separately as well. I will look around and see if I can get a better source.
Guessing this must be a USA issue. Prices in UK from a couple of suppliers are:
[b]Dovesfarm.co.uk[/b]
Organic Rye Flour £17.90 - Organic Rye Grain £17.90
Organic Wheat Flour £20.20 - Organic Wheat Grain £20.20
[b]realfoods.co.uk[/b]
Organic Rye Flour £26.14 - Organic Rye Grain £28.13
Organic Wheat Flour £21.04 - Organic Wheat Grain £21.25
Hamletcat, I am making the assumption here that you are buying 25kg sacks or near equivalent. Bulk buying in these quantities is the only way to go imo. My understanding of the USA food price issues is that many foods have, and continue to, spiral up in price as a result of the global food crisis that has been a problem since 2007 and which sparked off the "Arab Spring" troubles we have seen across North Africa and the East. Food shortages and rising prices became a massive problem in those countries and led to people going out of business and/or starving and that led to food riots. The riots got ugly and eventually led to regime changes, but the food crisis started it all. The USA's debts owed to other countries runs into $trillions as most are aware and many of those countries don't want to be repaid in US Dollars (whose value has plummeted), they would rather have food. So US exporting of foods has risen, which means less food available for Americans which means what food there is, is now more expensive. I don't profess to be an expert in any of this nor understand all the associated terms like "currency appreciation" but there's plenty out there to be Googled if you have the time. On a similar vein to your quandry of grain prices vs flour prices, I am equally puzzled at how suppliers can charge more for white flour than for wholewheat flour given that there is an extra process involved (sifting) to create the white from the wholewheat. It's all about people's perceptions of what they think they want and need and prefer in taste terms and the supply and demand created from that.
That's very interesting. I did not know that about the exporting of grains, but it makes sense. Thank you for that post!
Bread Flour at Winco for $3.49 (70 cents a pound) I also had a $1 coupon so the cost was only ,50 cents a pound. Also this week, I bought my favorite flour.La Fama AP for less than 30 cents a pound in the 5# bag. This only has 11.2% protein but it nis way better than Pillsbury or Gold Medal store AP flours at 10% protein.
The global food crisis, which basically only existed in poor Arab countries where the government decided to cut off food subsidies, has little to do with food prices in the USA that are priced in dollars. In the past month or so, due to the dramatic rise in the value of the dollar, commodity prices world wide for every commodity that is priced in dollars has fallen at least 7%. US bond prices have risen according and the US stock market has been declining This happens every time the world goes into some sort of chaos - just like we see today in the Ukraine, Hong Kong, Middle East and the huge slowdown of the European economies. People get worried and they buy US bonds and Dollars driving their prices up because they fear the end of the world as they know it where ever they live. Happens every time chaos ensues. It is pretty easy to make money knowing these facts.
Food prices have been nearly the same here, except for grain and those meat commodities fed grain for most things since the US dollar is used for pricing food commodities. Food sourced from the US by foreign countries have seen the price of food decline dramatically over the past 2 years, not including the last month, as the dollar declined in value making these commodities less expensive overseas. Now that the dollar is on a huge and fast rise this will change and foreign countries will see some price hikes in US sourced food going forward - but not as much as people might think.
What happened in the USA is that due to a drought, less harvest tonnage and much greater worldwide demand for US sourced grain due to the dollar decline in value, the price of all grains skyrocketed to all time highs in November 2012 in the USA. As the dollar weakened those overseas didn't notice the same huge price hike for US grains in 2012 like Americans did - but they still were up.
Since November 2012 grain prices, especially the 2 big ones corn and wheat, have fallen drastically to new lows this past month with corn down 49% in price and wheat down 30% over those 2 years. So, with the dollar weakening and price falling, those overseas really got a good deal on US sources commodities and why their demand skyrocketed. Now with the dollar skyrocketing causing a price hike in US commodities overseas, worldwide demand demand should fall off meaning the price of US sourced commodities in US Dollars will likely fall further offsetting some of this price appreciation of the US dollar.for those overseas.
US food processors were swifter to raise prices in the US as grain skyrocketed in 2011 and 2012, just not fast enough, so their overall profits were weak. As the price of grain was coming down in 2013 and 2014 they didn't reduce their prices much at all - meaning food processors made very good profits in 2013 and 2014 with their own stock prices soaring as a result. If the dollar stays high these global food companies based int the USA will see their profits flatten as currency exchange rates will eat into their bottom line and a slowdown of worldwide economies make the demand for their goods go down. Meat prices based on feed grain like beef and pork , rather than grass fed are still high but those more economical meats like chicken and turkey that are based based on corn are still very low and nearly unchanged.
This is why people no longer eat nearly as much much beef and pork but poultry sales are skyrocketing - it is all most people can afford,
There is no global food shortage and there never was one, but even in the USA, family household income is $3,000 less today than it was 5 years ago - it is worse other places. People don't have the money to buy food like they used to and government subsidies are not what they once were .....except in the USA where 47 million are on food assistance today VS 30 million 5 years ago - and they aren't buying beef.
When one of the the richest, most prosperous country the world has ever seen has nearly half their people on government assistance 5 years after the end of a recession, you can imagine what it is like most everywhere else. .It can't be pretty. You can expect more socio-economic based troubles worldwide as fewer people can afford food - not that it is scarce.
But grains should stay pretty low (compared to 2012) in price for a while.
Well thanks very much. I didn't realize it was so politcal. I did find a direct source that I can order online and it is a lot cheaper!
Prices are set by the age old economic principles of supply and demand and fear of shortages or having too much of something. When politicians stick their noses into free market prices of goods and services, terrible but predictive things happen. Food riots over bread in Arab countries happen when politicians first set price control subsidies on bread and then try to remove them. Venezuela and Cuba come to mind and other socialist countries where politicians set the price of goods that cause shortages, black markets chaos and violence. Sane politicians try to stay as far away for price controls as possible for good reason but their actions can cause huge swings in prices of goods and services. Putin's recent escapades in Crimea and Ukraine has caused the value of the ruble and stock market to plunge, the shortages of basic food stiffs is widespread and the price of these goods has skyrocketed when you can only find them on the black market.
Fear, pride and ego are the 3 things that cause failure and chaos in all things. Politicians cause fear - it is their bread and butter and the fear is what causes prices in markets to become volatile - it's all economic not political. Markets don't like uncertainty. The fear of shortages cause price increases in food in Russia just as the price and buying power of the ruble use to buy imported food in Russian cratered. Not a good combination but everyone knew what Putin's actions would cause - economic failure for the average Russian - but his pride and ego got in the way.
Still, he price of grain and flour hasn't been this low in America in years - can't say that elsewhere though.
At least there is happy baking going on somewhere all the time:-)