4 ms·

It seems so bizarre that so much flour is being consumed now. Are people hoarding it, or would this demand otherwise have been met from restaurants?

by morley 6y ago

peeters 6y ago
I think it's more that people are going from purchasing fresh bread to purchasing the ingredients for fresh bread.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Yes, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of bread on the shelves although if you only shop once a week it might not last.
Mtinie 6y ago
A spike in demand for ingredients used to make baked goods. People have the time now to experiment with things they previously had an interest in but not enough motivation to see it through.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  More importantly, baking your own bread saves you a trip to grocery store. My household went from shopping 3-4 times a week to less than once a week. I.e. we no longer do the "fresh bread + some small items" morning runs, only the one bulk trip every ~10 days. That means reducing the number of opportunities to get infected or infect others by a factor of 5.
empath75 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/2296/ https://xkcd.com/2296/
crazygringo 6y ago
Baking at home has skyrocketed. When you're bored it's an easy, family-friendly rewarding way to spend a couple hours. Think about how often people bake normally. Not often. Now it's all the time. Same reason why eggs and vanilla are also harder to find in some places.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Eggs seem to be pretty much back in stock where I live though they were scarce for a while. With eggs, it may not be baking so much (and you mostly don't even use them with yeast bread). But you've got whole families at home and I imagine there are a lot more hot breakfasts going on which can chew up egg stocks pretty quickly.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    This was true for us. I live with my fiance and we started cooking an omlette to be split between us every morning since this started. At three eggs a morning we can go through a dozen every 4 days. At one point we were trying to skip a trip to the store so I made a batch of black beans that we were eating for breakfast with tortillas and fresh cilantro. Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. So you can ask for all the ingredients for a complete meal plan and wind up with all the vegetables and a little meat but nothing else. Or you get shorted on other aspects of the pickup(this is just a bare statement of fact). We gave up and just went into the store with homemade PPE. I do think this situation is revealing just how fragile our system of just-in-time delivery and globalization is. For things like N95 masks national borders are very real, and being dependent on China for everything in the US is really really bad. It's also highlighting for me how important it is to know how to cook and be fluent in different kinds of cooking besides the standard American diet. When this first started the store shelves were picked clean of anything that most people recognize as nonperishable food. So I grabbed things like textured vegetable protein and millet. The shortages are really only a problem if you don't cook from first principles or don't have much experience with spices or other sources of flavor.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      >Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. Making a grocery store run about once a week (earlyish AM on a weekday) is one of the few compromises I've been making to just staying on my own property or adjacent basically unused forest trails. And the reason is as you say. I find a lot of real-time adjustments are still needed depending upon what's in stock.
aianus 6y ago
I doubt that much more flour is being consumed. It's probably all logistics and supply chain issues because everything was geared towards delivering 1000lb loads of flour to a bakery instead of 100 x 10 lbs bags of flour to the grocery store.
vkou 6y ago
People used to buy bread every few days, or go out to eat sandwiches, pizza, etc. Now, my bread purchases have gone to zero (Since we go shopping every few weeks, and have no room, or interest in freezing bread.) I'm not eating out. My net consumption of flour probably hasn't changed much, but my purchases of flour have gone up, dramatically.

It seems so bizarre that so much flour is being consumed now. Are people hoarding it, or would this demand otherwise have been met from restaurants?

by morley 6y ago

It seems so bizarre that so much flour is being consumed now. Are people hoarding it, or would this demand otherwise have been met from restaurants?

peeters 6y ago

I think it's more that people are going from purchasing fresh bread to purchasing the ingredients for fresh bread.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Yes, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of bread on the shelves although if you only shop once a week it might not last.

Mtinie 6y ago

A spike in demand for ingredients used to make baked goods. People have the time now to experiment with things they previously had an interest in but not enough motivation to see it through.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
More importantly, baking your own bread saves you a trip to grocery store. My household went from shopping 3-4 times a week to less than once a week. I.e. we no longer do the "fresh bread + some small items" morning runs, only the one bulk trip every ~10 days. That means reducing the number of opportunities to get infected or infect others by a factor of 5.

empath75 6y ago

https://xkcd.com/2296/ https://xkcd.com/2296/

crazygringo 6y ago

Baking at home has skyrocketed. When you're bored it's an easy, family-friendly rewarding way to spend a couple hours. Think about how often people bake normally. Not often. Now it's all the time. Same reason why eggs and vanilla are also harder to find in some places.

ghaff 6y ago
Eggs seem to be pretty much back in stock where I live though they were scarce for a while. With eggs, it may not be baking so much (and you mostly don't even use them with yeast bread). But you've got whole families at home and I imagine there are a lot more hot breakfasts going on which can chew up egg stocks pretty quickly.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  This was true for us. I live with my fiance and we started cooking an omlette to be split between us every morning since this started. At three eggs a morning we can go through a dozen every 4 days. At one point we were trying to skip a trip to the store so I made a batch of black beans that we were eating for breakfast with tortillas and fresh cilantro. Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. So you can ask for all the ingredients for a complete meal plan and wind up with all the vegetables and a little meat but nothing else. Or you get shorted on other aspects of the pickup(this is just a bare statement of fact). We gave up and just went into the store with homemade PPE. I do think this situation is revealing just how fragile our system of just-in-time delivery and globalization is. For things like N95 masks national borders are very real, and being dependent on China for everything in the US is really really bad. It's also highlighting for me how important it is to know how to cook and be fluent in different kinds of cooking besides the standard American diet. When this first started the store shelves were picked clean of anything that most people recognize as nonperishable food. So I grabbed things like textured vegetable protein and millet. The shortages are really only a problem if you don't cook from first principles or don't have much experience with spices or other sources of flavor.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >Store pickup also complicated things as you usually only get about 60 to 70 percent of the items you ask for, and usually it's the sundries that get knocked out. Making a grocery store run about once a week (earlyish AM on a weekday) is one of the few compromises I've been making to just staying on my own property or adjacent basically unused forest trails. And the reason is as you say. I find a lot of real-time adjustments are still needed depending upon what's in stock.

aianus 6y ago

I doubt that much more flour is being consumed. It's probably all logistics and supply chain issues because everything was geared towards delivering 1000lb loads of flour to a bakery instead of 100 x 10 lbs bags of flour to the grocery store.

vkou 6y ago

People used to buy bread every few days, or go out to eat sandwiches, pizza, etc. Now, my bread purchases have gone to zero (Since we go shopping every few weeks, and have no room, or interest in freezing bread.) I'm not eating out. My net consumption of flour probably hasn't changed much, but my purchases of flour have gone up, dramatically.