Great virus bake-off leaves shelves bare for bread makers

TOILET roll and pasta are back on supermarket shelves, to the relief of British consumers, but the latest basic supply to run out is flour.

As people under lockdown strive to kill time, baking has become a popular pastime, with many making their own sourdough and pasta.

Grocery sales of flour were up 92 per cent in the four weeks to March 22 compared with the same period last year, consumer analysts Kantar found. This has meant demand for flour has doubled, leaving shelves bare. Now, the industry has created a “flour map” to show where local bakers have begun to sell commercial bags for people to use at home.

While there is enough flour to go around, producers are struggling to pack it into enough 1.5kg bags. Alex Waugh, director general of the National Association of British and Irish Millers, said: “The problem, with regard to home-baking flour, is that ordinarily the market share is tiny – just 4 per cent, compared to the commercial sector.

“There is no problem in milling enough flour, but the sudden spike in demand has led to issues in physically being able to pack enough small, household bags for distribution to supermarkets and grocery stores. Retail packing lines are running 24 hours a day, seven days a week and overall output has doubled in the past month.”

Packing lines are now running at maximum capacity but this is only enough for 15 per cent of households to buy a bag of flour per week.

While supermarket shelves are empty of flour across the country at the moment, producers are striving to meet demand and should do shortly.

Andrie Opie, the director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said supermarkets were doing everything they could.

“Demand for flour surged in the runup to the coronavirus lockdown,” he explained. “Retailers are putting in place all the necessary measures to meet this high level of demand and have had production running at double its normal rate.”

Millers have been taking unusual steps to ensure flour production is ramped up to meet demand.

Sturminster Newton Mill, in Dorset, which was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and became a working museum after ceasing industrial operations in 1970, is now milling flour full-time for the first time in 50 years to help local grocers.