Flour Prices

Does anyone know if there is any kind of similar method for pricing flour, as there is for cheese? By that, I mean is there a standard starting value (like the Block pricing for cheese), or are there too many variables for a standard pricing method?

Perhaps a website similar to the Cheese Reporter that shows trends in flour (or wheat, I would guess…)?

Many thanks!

I can’t answer you question but my price came down last week from $22.40/20kg to $17.54.

A better answer might be to look at your costs. What is the cost % per pizza of a dough ball, and how much does a 5% gain/loss in flour cost affect it?

I can tell you right now that it is negligible. Concentrating on weighing your cheese and measuring your toppings are low hanging fruit, and will yield a much higher ROI on your time.

Pizzamancer, I agree that there is more low-hanging fruit to get at… and believe me, I am. But looking at Daddio’s price reduction (22%), I was thinking it is worth a look.

Interestingly enough, my flour cost went down over 30% in the last two weeks… I’m just wondering if there is something that is driving these wild fluctuations, and whether or not I can count on the current pricing.

Thanks for the input!

LOL - I just noticed you were in Hawaii. How is the Hawaiian wheat crop this year? The further you get from the source, the less stable your pricing is going to be. I would not count on being able to predict things, as in the continental US flour is shipped daily, while the stuff that gets to you has had a month long ride in a container. The pricing is more of a leap frog type from container to container.

Yeah, the Hawaiian wheat crop is a little shy… :stuck_out_tongue: But then, the Hawaiian crop for quite a few things that I’m using is not really up to par! :roll:

I know it’s much more difficult to predict things coming to the islands, but if I’m able to work a reasonable deal with my vendors for Cheese, shouldn’t the same be somewhat true for Flour?

For what it’s worth, General Mills has a Market Tracker at the Professionals section of its website at http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/markettracker.aspx .

PN

My price for the 25lb Bakers & Chefs bread flour from SAMS dropped to $8.62 last week.

We are paying $14 for 50 lbs right now.

Holy shat… we’re paying $25 for 50 pounds. But heres the deal with this… We get our flour from a company that my father has been using for MANY years. He didn’t want to change the recipe, and for my distributor to stock it, we had to buy 2500 pounds. So thats including freight and storage. But still, geeze. Maybe its time to rethink our options when we use up our stock…

Thanks for the eye openers guys.

i paid 14.85 for all trumps last friday…50 pound bags

Just for my home baking, I’m buying 50lb bags of ConAgra bread flour at Costco for $15. What I do when I make pizzas at home is add a little vital wheat gluten, which is basically pure protein, to approximate a professional high gluten flour. It actually works really well, and since I have a baking stone and an oven that will hit 550, my homebaked pies are just as good as the ones I used to make at work.

I try to keep a pretty close eye on the flour pricing situation which, is driven by world economic conditions, Mother Nature, and speculators. We are always bringing it up and discussing it both here at the THINK TANK and also on Pizza Radio (we just covered it).
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

in upstate ny … generic brand basic hi gluten flour is going for 12-14 per 50 lb from good distributors.