Why there’s still no flour in supermarkets – and it’s not just because everyone is baking in coronavirus lockdown It’s down to consumers to be practical and unselfish

When coronavirus panic started to take hold, shoppers began stockpiling canned goods, pasta, and toilet roll. Soon after, as the magnitude of the situation began to unravel, consumers bought everything else – all the baking flour included. Millions had baking in mind. Shelves sat empty.

After the initial disorder, shops started to appear relatively normal again. Rationing was put in place and the public urged to calm down; supermarket workers and suppliers worked flat out to restock products.

Visit a supermarket today, two weeks into lockdown, and you’ll likely see baked beans on the shelves and milk in the fridges. If you’re lucky, you might even spot a carton of eggs.

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But in many stores, flour remains elusive.

The reason why isn’t the foodstuff itself – the UK is self-sufficient in standard flour, producing around 90,000 tonnes each week – but the packaging. Of the 50 mills in the country today, just 12 are geared towards retail. We’re at capacity, and while workers have been toiling at factories now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they haven’t been able to keep up with the extra demand.

Capacity

Alex Waugh, the director of the National Association of British and Irish Flour Millers (Nabim), said the industry is better equipped to distribute at scale.

“There isn’t a problem with production,” he said to i. “It’s just that most goes to big food brands and bakeries. Bags are usually 25kg or 16kg. To pack for consumer retail requires a different line, and people don’t usually buy so much.”

Mr Waugh said factories can’t supply bulk and retail at the same time, and production lines can’t switch easily, or at all, between the two.

He added: “We have plenty of flour, there’s lot of it about. It’s just a question of scale. Normally people buy 2m bags of flour per week. That’s doubled to 4m, and we’re at the absolute max. Everyone’s working overtime.”

Mr Waugh said that with 27.5m households in the UK, there will never be enough 1.5kg, small bags of flour to go around. Home baking, affordable and efficient as it is, has long been more an artisan or weekend frivolity, and most loaves are bought already made. The sector is tailored to that structure. Less than five per cent of UK milled flour is sold at supermarkets.

Demand has doubled

“The public [must] only buy flour if they need to,” said Mr Waugh. “If you’re not using flour, don’t buy more – we’re not going to run out. It’s better to avoid stockpiling so that others have the opportunity to bake.”

While doubling up on production might sound unsustainable, Mr Waugh said that it isn’t – at least for now. Where consumers are buying more readily – bread sales in supermarkets are up some 20 per cent – the likes of Greggs and McDonald’s, which normally demand enormous amounts of the flour available for pastry and burger buns, have temporarily closed.

What’s more, the UK harvests most of its own wheat and mills most of its own flour. There is some import and export of foods, but these are usually down to quality. Mr Waugh said central European flour lends itself better to sourdough bread, for example, while British flour is particularly agreeable when making biscuits.

As the coronavirus lockdown continues, home cooks may well improve, and baking, a British pursuit, could be all the better for it. But we all need flour to bake our bread. Unless supermarkets start stocking larger bags of flour, we’ll need to limit purchasing and be mindful of others in knead.