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There’s something I don’t really understand here (south east Ireland). There also is no flour. Mmm, I mean « normal » flour. Was in Tesco yesterday for the (n

There’s something I don’t really understand here (south east Ireland). There also is no flour. Mmm, I mean « normal » flour. Was in Tesco yesterday for the (now) weekly shop visit and they were putting bags and bags of flour. But only self raising and plain ones. I wonder if the producers of the flour do this on purpose (those flours are way more expensive than basic ones)

Xylakant 7y ago
in germany, getting kilo-packs of flour is hard. I have access to metro, which is a supermarket/distributor for businesses and they had tons of flour, but only 25kg packs for commercial buyers. It's even marked on the package "Nur zum gewerblichen Gebrauch". So there's flour - it's just not in your distribution chain.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  There's been an article floating around that posits that the same thing is happening with toilet paper: plenty of "institutional" product is available (since many businesses are closed), but not "home" product (since people are not only hoarding but also using the restroom at home more).
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    yes, you can see that in quite a few categories of products: Canned Tomatoes, 2.5 kg cans available. 500g cans: out. Pasta, 500g Spaghetti? Forget it. 5kg bulk: Available. Yeast, regular cubes: no way. Ordering half a kilo of dry yeast: no problem. It's just that as a regular normal family, 500g of yeast will get you through a year or two, depending on how much you bake (that's about the equivalent of 75 packets of dry yeast) But that stuff is also impossible to repackage into smaller quantities without exposing it to spoilage. There's a few supermarkets in Berlin that sell unpackaged stuff (basically you bring your own reusable container and they fill it for you) and they're well stocked in flour, pasta and stuff since they solve the repackaging issue at the point of sale.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    Why hasn't this institutional supply been redirected to the consumer market? Same question regarding all the food normally sold to restaurants and companies that are now closed.
    - organsnyder 7y ago
      First of all, consumer preferences remain different. And some products (such as bigger rolls designed for specific dispensers) aren't ideal. More importantly, the supply chain and delivery models are very different. Retailers don't have arrangements with institutional suppliers, packaging is different (quantities, SKUs, etc.), and—most importantly, I think—everyone is scrambling and operating at reduced organizational capacity, so it's just plain hard.
    - Xylakant 7y ago
      Institutional supply has different packaging, both in sizes and for example required customer information. For flour it’s often entirely different mills, resellers and delivery modes: most consumers cannot reasonably buy a 25kg bag of flour - let alone a delivery by truck intended to be pumped straight into your flour silo. What would you reasonably do with half a kilo of dried yeast? Repacking is entirely infeasible for a lot of products - re-canning 2.5kg of canned tomato concentrate is a bit of a mess. So supply chains will adapt, but that takes time. Some things may be out of stock for a while - I would not expect any substantial quantities of italian brand pasta to show up on the German market for quite a bit. We’ll probably have to rely on German pasta (different flour, often with egg unlike Italian) We’ll not starve, but we’ll have to live without some stuff we’ve learned to expect as part of our regular diet.

Xylakant 7y ago

in germany, getting kilo-packs of flour is hard. I have access to metro, which is a supermarket/distributor for businesses and they had tons of flour, but only 25kg packs for commercial buyers. It's even marked on the package "Nur zum gewerblichen Gebrauch". So there's flour - it's just not in your distribution chain.

organsnyder 7y ago
There's been an article floating around that posits that the same thing is happening with toilet paper: plenty of "institutional" product is available (since many businesses are closed), but not "home" product (since people are not only hoarding but also using the restroom at home more).
- Xylakant 7y ago
  yes, you can see that in quite a few categories of products: Canned Tomatoes, 2.5 kg cans available. 500g cans: out. Pasta, 500g Spaghetti? Forget it. 5kg bulk: Available. Yeast, regular cubes: no way. Ordering half a kilo of dry yeast: no problem. It's just that as a regular normal family, 500g of yeast will get you through a year or two, depending on how much you bake (that's about the equivalent of 75 packets of dry yeast) But that stuff is also impossible to repackage into smaller quantities without exposing it to spoilage. There's a few supermarkets in Berlin that sell unpackaged stuff (basically you bring your own reusable container and they fill it for you) and they're well stocked in flour, pasta and stuff since they solve the repackaging issue at the point of sale.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  Why hasn't this institutional supply been redirected to the consumer market? Same question regarding all the food normally sold to restaurants and companies that are now closed.
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    First of all, consumer preferences remain different. And some products (such as bigger rolls designed for specific dispensers) aren't ideal. More importantly, the supply chain and delivery models are very different. Retailers don't have arrangements with institutional suppliers, packaging is different (quantities, SKUs, etc.), and—most importantly, I think—everyone is scrambling and operating at reduced organizational capacity, so it's just plain hard.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    Institutional supply has different packaging, both in sizes and for example required customer information. For flour it’s often entirely different mills, resellers and delivery modes: most consumers cannot reasonably buy a 25kg bag of flour - let alone a delivery by truck intended to be pumped straight into your flour silo. What would you reasonably do with half a kilo of dried yeast? Repacking is entirely infeasible for a lot of products - re-canning 2.5kg of canned tomato concentrate is a bit of a mess. So supply chains will adapt, but that takes time. Some things may be out of stock for a while - I would not expect any substantial quantities of italian brand pasta to show up on the German market for quite a bit. We’ll probably have to rely on German pasta (different flour, often with egg unlike Italian) We’ll not starve, but we’ll have to live without some stuff we’ve learned to expect as part of our regular diet.