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Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

jefftk.com

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Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#151

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

nullc wrote: post #144
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I present to you this commenter, who just bought 200 lbs of flour. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885192 Hoarders suck, especially super hoarders like this.

> I do go through a lot of it. My hobby is baking. Please don't reflexively characterize people who do different things or have different needs as "super hoarders".

If you're willing to dismiss 200 lbs of flour as hobby levels, then do you even believe in hoarding at all?

We're talking enough flour to make 200 loaves. At best, they bought a 3 month supply of flour (and that is baking 2 loaves every day). At worst, this is more flour than they can possibly use, and a large amount of it will go bad (storing 200 lbs of flour inside is a bit of a challenge, so it may be stored in a garage or worse).

And of course, with every product in the grocery store, if we all go out and buy a 3 month or further supply of a basic good, there's not going to be any left. Which only encourages more hoarding.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#152

Post by ceejayoz »

khazhoux wrote: post #139
ceejayoz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression people are throwing the bread away after baking?

No, I'm under the impression that people who did perfectly well buying loaves of bread before, and whose family@home bread consumption increases the amount of bread usage only by a moderate relative amount, are now buying loaves and months-worth of flour. The shortage of flour, butter, TP, chips, and everything else is due to individuals' selfishness. There is certainly enough food to account for the extra meals at h…

This is simply false.

The entire grocery supply chain works on a just-in-time model. Demand for stuff like flour, toilet paper, etc. on a chain-level scale is entirely predictable in normal times - Walmart can likely tell you what a given day's sales will be of stuff like toilet paper down to within a couple percent.

A sudden, unexpected, and sustained 10-20% increase in purchases of various staples blows a gaping hole in the entire thing.

The entire supply chain plans months ahead for Thanksgiving-level demand. We basically all did a Thanksgiving shop without warning.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#153

Post by lunias »

jedimastert wrote: post #39
davefp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Niche hobby communities do this all the time. The mechanical keyboard community wouldn't exist without group buys, they rely on them to hit minimum order quantities from producers of custom keycaps, PCBs, and other manufactured items. These are then shipped to proxy vendors around the world who do last-mile shipping to end users. Homebrew clubs also put in wholesale orders for raw materials like yeast, grain, and hop…

This is kind of the point behind drop.com, no?

Drop has been transitioning away from group buys for sometime now. Since their re-branding their strategy appears more reminiscent of private labeling.

Most products have Drop / Massdrop in the name now.

The most recent two actual (keyboard) group buys that I participated in have been really poorly handled. One is still delayed and has not shipped (order placed 561 days ago). The other shipped broken (to everyone in the drop) after being delayed for months. I had to manually ISP flash a bootloader.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#155

Post by BenjiWiebe »

soared wrote: post #124
irrational wrote: post #117

My local stores are totally sold out of flour. I had to travel to a different state to pick up my daughter from college. While traveling, I stopped at a Costco for gas. On a whim I went into the store and they actually had some flour available. I purchased about 200 lbs, even though I had to pay sales tax, since I have no idea when flour will again be available in my area. When I got home my wife asked me if they had…

Flour goes bad in <8 months. I hope your using a pound a day.

You might be able to freeze it. My mother stores some lesser used flours in her freezer, i.e. maseca, corn meal, almond flour.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#156

Post by mattrp »

dredmorbius wrote: post #136
mattrp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just finished our 25lb bag from the Ebola panic buying days... make sure before you buy a ton of flour you know what you’re going to do with it. Bread isn’t very good without yeast (good luck finding that), cakes aren’t very good with all purpose flour, pasta is really hard to make without a pasta maker, etc... sorry to be a downer but I’m kind of the opinion that while some flour is good, and it’s certainly good…

I've become a sourdough bread baker over the past three weeks, going from producing constructionnmaterials (dense bricks) to some of the best bread I've ever had. Realized yeaast wasn't to be had for love or mone: https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103845407941910287 Starter recipe: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-re... Took about 6 days to get going. 3rd loaf was a winner. Feedback from ho…

Great advice thank you. Where are you finding the spelt and whole wheat?

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#157

Post by nullc »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #151
nullc wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do go through a lot of it. My hobby is baking. Please don't reflexively characterize people who do different things or have different needs as "super hoarders".

If you're willing to dismiss 200 lbs of flour as hobby levels, then do you even believe in hoarding at all? We're talking enough flour to make 200 loaves. At best, they bought a 3 month supply of flour (and that is baking 2 loaves every day). At worst, this is more flour than they can possibly use, and a large amount of it will go bad (storing 200 lbs of flour inside is a bit of a challenge, so it may be stored in a…

I don't know about willing to dismiss but you're making assumptions about facts not in evidence. For all you know the poster is cooking for 6 adults.

Moreover, ... whats wrong with a three months supply of flour? For the last few years we've maintained that much flour at my house-- just because its a convenient level to purchase/manage for us, nothing to do with preparedness (which, incidentally, is virtuous), and certainly not any kind of hording.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#158

Post by jefftk »

mattrp wrote: post #114
ardy42 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 haven't seen that yet, but at least one grocery chain in my area was offering 25 lb bags of flour for sale about a month ago (or maybe they were 40-50 lb bags). Haven't been back since to that store since to see if they're still doing it (been slowly rotating through…

We just finished our 25lb bag from the Ebola panic buying days... make sure before you buy a ton of flour you know what you’re going to do with it. Bread isn’t very good without yeast (good luck finding that), cakes aren’t very good with all purpose flour, pasta is really hard to make without a pasta maker, etc... sorry to be a downer but I’m kind of the opinion that while some flour is good, and it’s certainly good…

> Bread isn’t very good without yeast (good luck finding that)

Yeast is still available online: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HST626C/

> cakes aren’t very good with all purpose flour

We only stock all-purpose, and there are a lot of great cakes you can make with it. Here's one I make a lot: https://www.jefftk.com/recipes/choccake

Before organizing this, we had already gone through about 30lb since we started staying in (https://www.jefftk.com/p/stepping-up-isolation)

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#159

Post by jefftk »

nullc wrote: post #157
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to dismiss 200 lbs of flour as hobby levels, then do you even believe in hoarding at all? We're talking enough flour to make 200 loaves. At best, they bought a 3 month supply of flour (and that is baking 2 loaves every day). At worst, this is more flour than they can possibly use, and a large amount of it will go bad (storing 200 lbs of flour inside is a bit of a challenge, so it may be stored in a…

I don't know about willing to dismiss but you're making assumptions about facts not in evidence. For all you know the poster is cooking for 6 adults. Moreover, ... whats wrong with a three months supply of flour? For the last few years we've maintained that much flour at my house-- just because its a convenient level to purchase/manage for us, nothing to do with preparedness (which, incidentally, is virtuous), and ce…

I totally agree with you. The more people that maintain a 3m supply of non-perishables and rotate through them, the more robust society will be to problems like this one.

Households also vary a lot in size: ours is six adults and two kids, so we do go through a lot of food.

Re: Organizing a Group Buy of Flour

#160

Post by fennecfoxen »

jefftk wrote: post #158
mattrp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just finished our 25lb bag from the Ebola panic buying days... make sure before you buy a ton of flour you know what you’re going to do with it. Bread isn’t very good without yeast (good luck finding that), cakes aren’t very good with all purpose flour, pasta is really hard to make without a pasta maker, etc... sorry to be a downer but I’m kind of the opinion that while some flour is good, and it’s certainly good…

> Bread isn’t very good without yeast (good luck finding that) Yeast is still available online: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HST626C/ > cakes aren’t very good with all purpose flour We only stock all-purpose, and there are a lot of great cakes you can make with it. Here's one I make a lot: https://www.jefftk.com/recipes/choccake Before organizing this, we had already gone through about 30lb since we started staying i…

Besides yeast being almost-everywhere including the flour itself (the sourdough option others have mentioned) I will point out that you can also leaven your bread with the yeast from beer.
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