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flour prices

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I use hi gluten flour for my dough.Does anyone know how to convert recipes to all-purpose flour.I swapped them one for one and the dough was not very good.Is there any way to save myself money using a different flour?Please help me out.Flour and cheese prices are killing our mom + pop operation.With the economy being the way it is I’m trying desperately not to raise prices.HELP!
 
Big daddy's pizza:
I use hi gluten flour for my dough.Does anyone know how to convert recipes to all-purpose flour.I swapped them one for one and the dough was not very good.Is there any way to save myself money using a different flour?Please help me out.Flour and cheese prices are killing our mom + pop operation.With the economy being the way it is I’m trying desperately not to raise prices.HELP!
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Not sure what flour you are using or what distributor you have, but, Kyrol produced by ConAgra is still low in my area. I have found the Kyrol to be a better HG than Trumps.
 
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Can’t be done. The protein is what makes for the crispiness. You can use bread flour but you will have to add “gluten”. Not sure it would save any money.
 
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Ya just gotta raise yer prices if you want to stay in business…period.
You don’t need to raise then $2.00 a pie to cover the flour price increases, in a pound of dough, at $30.00 per bag cost, there is roughly $0.36 worth of flour in the dough. If you do a price surcharge of $0.50 per pizza, you will vastly more than cover the cost increase of the flour, and you wil also off set some of the price increase of the cheese too. You might want to look at it like this: Due to the recent escalating costs of flour and cheese, we must add a surcharge to all of our pizzas as follows; Small Pizzas $0.30; Medium Pizzas $0.40; Large Pizzas $0.50, this way you don’t need to change your menu, and you can adjust the surcharge (hopefully downward) as needed. Like a friend of mie says “It’s a hell of a way to do business, but it beats the alternative”.
To answer youe question, you just can’t replace an all purpose flour for a high protein/gluten flour, but in many cases you can use a bread type flour. To substitute a bread flour for your high gluten flour, adjust your finished dough temperature to the 70 to 75F range, be sure to take the dough directly to the cooler after scaling and balling it, and adjust your holding toime in the cooler to not more than 2-days. Begin using the dough on the first day, use it all by the end of the second day. We have successfully made this conversion many times and it works well. As for baking, don’t try to fast bake the pizzas, in many cases we can get just as crispy of a pizza by reducing the baking temperature by 25F and slightly extending the baking time.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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It is a tricky situation. If you believe it is a temporary spike in prices, you could raise your prices just a bit to cover it (you should periodically raise prices to the market anyway). However, if flour prices are going to stay high for the foreseeable future, you will need to consider raising prices not just to cover the increase, but to keep food cost percentage in line.

So say your cost of flour in a doughball goes up 25 cents.

Temporary (year or less) spike in prices = raise your price 25 cents
Chronic increase is price = raise price by 75 to 100 cents.

Now, the market will not absorb every price increase without complaint. You need to carefully watch your competitors and evaluate the uniqueness of your own products and services. Customers are more price sensitive when they perceive your product as a commodity. So differentiate yourself!

If market constraints prevent you from raising prices on your pizza, consider doing something to entice your customers into purchasing the higher-margin products you have by bundling them with a pizza.

Rising costs mean intensifying competition… I love the challenge!
 
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Big Daddy,

Bein gin the same market you are, I just did pretty much what Tom suggested. I just raised my base prices 50 sents and 75 cents depending on the size. Buut if you change your product, you will change your customer flow. People are seeing gas go up around here and will expect the trickle down effect because it’s not only flour, its alot of different things.

But like I said, never change your product, your customer will know. I get comments if I change any little thing. They expect it a certain way, that’s why they come to you.
 
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The big problem with flour prices is the sheer speculation. Over the past few days we have seen a drop in wheat prices, so there might be a drop in flour prices coming soon, then, as we get into the harvest time (June through August) we should at least see some of the domestic wheat stocks replenished, which, should lead to lower flour prices as the threat/concern over running out of wheat/flour is eased or put aside. There is no reason to go to the expense of printing out new menus every time we buy flour. Just about every expert that I’ve spoken to on this issue al agree that until the price of flour stabilizes, we should just pass the direct cost on to the consumer. The market is just too volatile to handle it any other way right now.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Great information, Tom. If it is just a temporary condition, I think I would try to bundle higher margin add-ons rather than charging a “surcharge”. Customers really don’t give a darn about our problems and surcharges just point them out. Now, with the media attention to fuel and other rising costs, they are more accepting of price increases. And wheat and cheese have been now getting some exposure. Hopefully the big chains will adjust their prices upward and enabled us independents to do likewise.

I am wondering how long Domino’s and the like can continue their 3 for $15 offer…
 
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I’m betting that they wish they were out of it already. I’m guessing that their flour contracts will be expiring very soon and they’ll be in the same boat with the rest of us.
Bundling is a great way to charge more for the ticket, read pizza, while still giving the customer a good preceived value for their money.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Here’s something to ponder about future wheat prices.

A Western Australian (not Austria) farming family are spending $10million on planting wheat in their 100,000 hectare of farmland across Western Australia. They own or lease a number of farms over an distance of 1,100km. The farmland area is bigger than some countries such as Singapore or Bahrain.

The farm owner said they are planting 38,000 hectare more than their record planting in 2006 on the back of record prices and the expectation that the prices will stay at least the same for the next 2 - 3 years. He was quoted in the newspaaper article that “GRAIN IS GOLD AGAIN”.

Looks like we wont be having temporary prices rises, but readjusting prices upwards fuulstop.

Dave
 
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Dave;
It is highly doubtful that he will be getting the present wheat prices on his next crop as the harvests from other countries will collectively work to drive prices downward. Remember, a vast portion of the price of wheat today is due to speculation, if you take that out of the picture you should be looking at wheat prices of $7.00 to $9.00 a bushel today.
I sure hope, for his sake, that Australia doesn’t suffer the continued drought that they’ve had over the past two years. No doubt about it, wheat prices are up, and due to the increased world demand for wheat, it will stay up, but not near the present prices.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Raise your prices!!! If you were a mom-pop gas station and a tanker truck delivers $3.25 gas, would you sell it for $3.26???
 
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