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Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

jefftk.com

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Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#61

Post by jefftk »

ghaff wrote: post #55
ccoggins wrote: post #53

This seems a bit expensive. I recently bought a 25lb bag of flour from Sams club and it was 6.50, or about 26 cents a pound. They also had plenty in stock. Costco also has it for a similar price. Last time I bought yeast there it's also cheap - about 5 or 6 bucks for something like 2lbs(which is a ridiculous amount of baking yeast). Baking a lot can make this practically worth the cost of the membership.

You're comparing probably the most expensive mass market flour (King Arthur) with probably about the cheapest (Walmart's). A 2x-3x price differential sounds about right.

(author)

The original flour we were thinking of buying was https://www.webstaurantstore.com/all-purpose-flour-50-lb/104... $12.25/bag (50lb), mildly cheaper than the Sam's Club price above. But then adding in shipping on a truck from PA added another $9.40/bag.

In places where people can easily buy individual 25lb bags for $6.50, though, you don't need to organize a group buy!

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#62

Post by ghaff »

ahelwer wrote: post #38
greedo wrote: post #10

Our grocery chain has been buying rice and flour in bulk from restaurant supply houses and repackaging them in 1lb bags. Pretty agile if you ask me.

Used to do this when I worked at an agricultural supply company, spent many an hour in the warehouse filling consumer-sized bags of ag-grade fertilizer from a jury-rigged hopper. Probably paid my summer's salary with only a couple days of that work, you could resell 5 cents worth of fertilizer for $20. Apparently made your lawn grass grow like weeds.

When I was in business school, the school was just introducing PC use for projects and had setup a computer lab with PC-AT compatibles as I recall. Yes, I'm dating myself.

Anyway, in addition to making pretty good money as working the desk as a lab consultant if people had any questions and to just keep an eye on things, I sold individual floppy disks. I don't remember the numbers but basically I could place a bulk 100 diskette order for maybe a tenth the price that individual diskettes were sold for in the campus store. It was a nice profitable little side gig that took almost zero effort.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#63

Post by baybal2 »

greedo wrote: post #10

Our grocery chain has been buying rice and flour in bulk from restaurant supply houses and repackaging them in 1lb bags. Pretty agile if you ask me.

I think big supermarkers are making things worse at the moment.

It was very hard to get basic supplies and food when all small shops were ordered to close, and only big supermarkets were kept open, and supplied by organised convoys.

This appears to be rational at first, but it only led to people all rushing to those few supermarkets the moment the convoy arrives, and them being emptied clean by first 50 something people.

It also led to wholesale bases being emptied by supermarkets, as they have the biggest buying power, and biggest truck fleets. Here, I heard that they went through more than 8 months supply of flour in just few weeks.

The situation got much better when small shops were let to open.

Both supermarkets, and wholesalers are of course very happy with that, but that left near nothing for small shops when they reopened.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#64

Post by ghaff »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #41
devchix wrote: post #12

> Webstaurant would ship a pallet of flour, 50 bags of 50lbs each, for $1,081 or $0.43/lb. > Unfortunately, between placing the order and them shipping it they ran out of stock Insanity! I'm heartened that people are still baking at home though. For comparison, retail King Arthur All-Purpose flour goes for about $3.69 for 5lbs, or $0.73/lb, so at $0.56/lb Sir Galahad flour is still a bargain. Whole wheat flour has br…

I question how many people are actually using the flour they're hoarding, and how many are just putting it in the back of the pantry because, "When the end of the world comes, you'll need flour!" It's very irritating for those of us who actually bake on a regular basis and resisted the temptation to hoard for hoarding's sake.

Or they intend to bake and when their first try at a sourdough starter fails they give up, in part because at least around where I live there's no shortage of bread (and there hasn't been) in the stores.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#65

Post by ghaff »

XorNot wrote: post #52
sneak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Everyone in my vicinity buys their non-restaurant food from 2-3 grocery stores. I am talking about having the community's food supply be provided by more suppliers, and each other, p2p style. Perhaps a data-driven "farmer's market" style setup. Distributed, not just hub-and-spoke decentralized. We just watched the failure mode of that one.

No we didn't, we watched a supply chain shock which could've been prevented if we had some common-sense regulation to require supermarkets and grocery stores to enact purchasing limits if their demand curves start behaving anomalously. Distributed systems in software are hard. Th idea it'll somehow be easier when you need to truck tonnes of physical goods around is wishful thinking - the same failure modes still appl…

Around where I live, supermarkets started imposing limits pretty quickly. It's in their self-interest not to piss off customers who come into buy something and leave empty-handed.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#66

Post by nkozyra »

geodel wrote: post #49
droopyEyelids wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waffles are the perfect comfort food during these times- 2c flour, 1.75c milk, 1/2c melted butter or oil, big pinch of salt, 4tsp baking powder, 2 eggs. Throw in some vanilla or other flavor concentrate if you'd like! A quick crowd pleasing recipe using all staples

Thanks for this. I am going to try your recipe. Few months back we bought Waffle maker with great expectations. However after 2 disastrous attempts which resulted in very stogy waffles, we put that away. I was wondering should if we just buy some readymade batter that some stores sell.

Waffle makers also produce phenomenal cornbread (or cornwaffles) in minutes.

Otherwise it's an appliance that doesn't get much use around lunch/dinner time.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#67

Post by baybal2 »

It is surprising to me that the West has hit food security issues earlier than Asia.

The food supply chain in US is much better than in Europe, and Europe is better than most of Asia.

A week ago, I was very scared myself for there being a 21st century famine in Asia, but I never could've imagined how bad panic buying can hit countries even with robust food supply chains.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#68

Post by jahn716 »

Based in Paris, France - even prior to the lockdown, bakeries sold baking-related supplies if you knew how to ask (flour, yeast, pre-made dough at various stages, etc.).

But now they sell it like a main product; even today when I went to buy some bread at one of my local shops, they had sacks of flour set up in the storefront and showcases.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#69

Post by jefftk »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #41
devchix wrote: post #12

> Webstaurant would ship a pallet of flour, 50 bags of 50lbs each, for $1,081 or $0.43/lb. > Unfortunately, between placing the order and them shipping it they ran out of stock Insanity! I'm heartened that people are still baking at home though. For comparison, retail King Arthur All-Purpose flour goes for about $3.69 for 5lbs, or $0.73/lb, so at $0.56/lb Sir Galahad flour is still a bargain. Whole wheat flour has br…

I question how many people are actually using the flour they're hoarding, and how many are just putting it in the back of the pantry because, "When the end of the world comes, you'll need flour!" It's very irritating for those of us who actually bake on a regular basis and resisted the temptation to hoard for hoarding's sake.

(author)

I've talked to most of the friends in the group buy about their baking; it just comes up. People are making bread, pizza, naan, waffles, all sorts of things. I don't think this is people buying flour who aren't going to bake with it.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#70

Post by droopyEyelids »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #18
devchix wrote: post #12

> Webstaurant would ship a pallet of flour, 50 bags of 50lbs each, for $1,081 or $0.43/lb. > Unfortunately, between placing the order and them shipping it they ran out of stock Insanity! I'm heartened that people are still baking at home though. For comparison, retail King Arthur All-Purpose flour goes for about $3.69 for 5lbs, or $0.73/lb, so at $0.56/lb Sir Galahad flour is still a bargain. Whole wheat flour has br…

waffles are the perfect comfort food during these times- 2c flour, 1.75c milk, 1/2c melted butter or oil, big pinch of salt, 4tsp baking powder, 2 eggs. Throw in some vanilla or other flavor concentrate if you'd like! A quick crowd pleasing recipe using all staples

also put sugar in, amount to taste!
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