Comments on: King Arthur Flour lowers the price grocery retailers pay for our flours

By: Cheyenne

Cheyenne — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:57:19 +0000

Hi my name is Cheyenne i am 11 years old looking for facts about why we should lower food prices in stores this is for a school project and i cant find any so please help me if so thanx.

LUV LUV,
Cheyenne

Hi Cheyenne: In my opinion, food prices in stores have to be fair to everyone. To the farmers who produce the food, the manufacturers who package it, the truckers and railroaders who carry it across the country, the stores that sell it, AND all of us who eat it. Sometimes that means food prices can be lowered, if someone along the line is making too much money. But sometimes it means prices have to go up, as when the farmer finds it’s much more expensive to grow wheat one year than it was the year before, and bread prices have to go up. Of course it would be nice if food prices could be lowered, all food prices in all stores; that way everyone could eat healthy food, and no one should go hungry. But it’s not realistic to expect that to happen, unfortunately. I hope this helps you with your project. Good luck! And luv luv luv back to you - PJH

By: Catrinka

Catrinka — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:33:33 +0000

Well, Thanks for lowering the price, but I have not seen the savings at my local retailer. The price for KAF, all-purpose 5lb., was 4.59 and shot up to 6.29. I only use KAF flour for my baking. I will be placing an order soon from your shopping service. Even with the shipping, I am saving. Thanks for a quality product.

By: Malinda

Malinda — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:48:18 +0000

Happy to report back we went to resturant depot last night and picked up our 50lb bag of KA and it is now $17.07 down from $19.99.

THANKS!!

By: Jami F.

Jami F. — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:44:09 +0000

So glad to hear this news and I applaud KAF for being so responsive and sensitive. However, so far, the raised prices on KAF at my grocery stores have not lowered since 8/1/08. Hum.

By: Heike Sellers

Heike Sellers — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:40:33 +0000

That is great to hear, but I doubt the stores are lowering their prices. Suddenly the prices in stores almost doubled up to $4.29 per bag of King Arthur flour. I love this flour. It is the best substitute for my German recipes. I use it for everything, plus, no other flour company has White Whole Wheat flour, with which I can fool any picky neighbor kid. My kids love the fuller, good breads, but the others all need everything as light as possible. Well, the stores have not reduced their prices in the least, nor have I seen any sales. They probably know I would be buying up all the flour that my house can hold…

Heike, many stores had raised prices well above $5/lb. before dropping back down to the upper $4 range, so maybe your local store kept it low for quite some time and then raised it. $4.29 is actually pretty moderate right now… Thanks so much for your loyalty! -PJH

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:54:17 +0000

Today, I went to our local Stop and Shop, here in CT, to get my usual 10 pounds of self-rising flour (2 bags), but saw a bare shelf and no tag! I went to the customer service desk and asked what happened. The clerks, maybe in their late teens or early twenties, both young women, at first sincerely did not even know what flour was (I am not kidding), and thought I needed to visit the florist part of the store to find what I was looking for. I then had to patiently, but briefly explain what flour was, and finally explain the distinction about self-rising flour. Watching them slowly grasp the concept of baking with flour (and I could tell they were not “putting me on” about it), I was stunned to realize that they probably have never cooked in their lives (other than maybe microwave popcorn, etc.), and only eat prepared foods or take out. (Or maybe I unwittingly stepped into the dimension of the Twilight Zone, and it’s all only a bad dream.) They kindly took my name and number for the store manager to call me, but doubting that we would ever get a call, I Googled the product, tonight, and wound up here. To my dismay, I see you will no longer make the stuff. Our homemade Maine family recepie blueberry muffins will no longer be the same! Ditto for all the other yummy cakes and goodies we make for our children from scratch with your awesome self-rising flour. I understand the effort to save costs, in light of 400% wheat price increases, locust invasions, climate change, and possibly flaming hailstones from the sky, but hope you will reconsider this travesty in the kitchen! Maybe offer a test run, a direct sales campaign from your website? How much volume is too little to be practical, or a public service for your devoted customers? Seeing those two clerks, I think I may better appreciate the marketing challenge you face every day. For what it’s worth, I have also noticed a narrowing selection of other cooking basics in the grocery stores, and I have to special order more items that used to be commonplace, for example: fines herbs, which is on back order from our local natural food store (forget asking the chains to carry it). The irony is that as stores get more and more square feet over the years, they seem to carry fewer and fewer essentials. That, and they constantly move store layouts. Please counter these gloomy national trends and reconsider offering your wonderful self-rising flour directly to customers. My wife and children will also thank you.

You can make your own self-rising flour by adding 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to 1 cup of KAF all purpose flour.

Hi Robert - I’m sorry you’re going to miss our self-rising flour! As one of my fellow bakers above notes, you can make your own - and I highly recommend our Maine Bakewell Cream baking powder, which includes no aluminum, giving it a nicer flavor. Also, you can cut back the salt from 1/2 teaspoon per cup to 1/4 teaspoon, for a lower-salt version. There simply aren’t enough people puschasing self-rising flour anymore - either in the supermarkets, or on our Web site. We tried for a good long while, but in the end sales just didn’t warrant keeping it going, especially with shelf space in the supermarket so difficult to procure. I hope you go ahead and make your own so you can continue to enjoy those blueberry muffins! - PJH

By: shelle

shelle — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:55:45 +0000

This is the best news ever! I was shocked when the price went from $4 a bag to almost $8 at my local store. Thank you so much.

By: Audrey Binder

Audrey Binder — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:34:39 +0000

A couple of days after reading this blog the prices in the southeast Michigan area went from $4.69/bag to $3.99/bag for the unbleached AP flour and bread flour. We have Meijer stores that I buy from. The Wal Mart did not have KA AP flour though. They had other KA flours available but they really mix all different brands for different types of flour.

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:39:00 +0000

I have just found 5lb bread flour at Henry’s in Costa Mesa, CA yesterday. I was so happy.but the prices are quite high, it was 6.99. I live in pasadena, CA in fact. But nearby trader joe don’t carry KA Bread flour. I don’t know any store nearby carry KA bread flour.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:20:41 +0000

Hey PJ and others -

Yeah, I know you can’t control supermarket pricing. I sure wish I could!! I’m mostly frustrated with the supermarkets - I know costs HAVE risen for some products that we just can’t avoid. But what is so frustrating is that some of the mark-ups are ridiculous. For example, Red Star yeast jars are normally about 3.95 at my local Wal-Mart Supercenter. At my local Pick N Save, they’re DOUBLE that.

I’m just going to start ordering my flour online - I’m really impressed with the whole wheat flour I got; it is truly a lovely flour! I’d go check my local Walmart for KA flour, but we’re deep in Gold Medal country here - I was hard pressed to find ONE store carrying KA flour! But I’ll be sticking with you folks at KA; my husband won’t eat homemade wheat bread normally, but with a recipe I found on the bag and some patient baking, he LOVES it. I don’t know what the difference is, but it HAS to be the flour!

Pretty please, can you do a blog post on baking to cut costs and avoid processed foods like canned biscuits, packaged bread, etc?

Andrea, I’ve done a biscuit blog. And lots of bread blogs. Cruise through some of the older ones, I think you’ll find lots of good stuff… PJH