The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Costco/Sam's Bread Flour

Kitchen Barbarian's picture
Kitchen Barbarian

Costco/Sam's Bread Flour

Recently my local Costcos (all 3 of them, one actually in another city) stopped carrying, of all things, BACON.

Yup, they no longer carry the regular bacon in the 3 or 4 lb bundles, in the blue packaging.  They do still carry thick bacon and low salt bacon.  Neither of which I want anything to do with.

Which got me to counting up the number of things I used to buy at Costco all the time which I can no longer get. The list is a lot longer than I thought and I will be letting my membership lapse, if I don't actually cash it back in.  I mean seriously.  NO BACON?  (Thick and low salt are the same as no bacon in my world, LOL!)

They stopped carrying spices years ago.  Most other stuff I would buy, I don't any more, because they only carry the high dollar "organic" versions.  Catsup, for heaven's sake!  Lots of other things they have dropped or gone to weird packaging decisions.  Jalapenos for instance, I can only get in a bundle with pepperoncini.  I like pepperoncini but I don't eat them both at the same rate.  Can't get a dozen eggs any more either. They no longer package 2 - six packs of bagels together but they still make you buy two.  What's the thinking behind that???

And when I moved here 4 or 5 years ago, they had switched to a "bread flour" that was rated at between 9 and 11%.  That's  not bread flour.  That's AP flour.  So given the latest weird droppage, I got to looking around the store trying to find things I actually buy from them still, and discovered that now they don't carry even mislabeled bread flour.  Just AP flour.  And the packaging looks EXACTLY like the psuedo bread flour I stopped buying there 4 or 5 years ago.

After checking with a baking friend I'm told they aren't carrying any bread flour at the local Sam's club either.  So we're basically down to getting it from the Winco bulk bins - and Winco is dropping a lot of stuff as well.  I didn't see teff or spelt flour this go-round there.

Are there any Costco/Sam's that still carry actual bread flour anywhere in the country?  I have to think that the death of the founder has not been good for Costco buyers.

MichaelLily's picture
MichaelLily

Our Sam’s Club in Hermantown, MN carries Dakota Maid AP and Bread flours. This is North Dakota Mill and the AP is 12.3% protein and the breas is 12.9% protein. All sold in 25lb sacks. They also sell Gold Medal, I think the AP, but that is like 11.5% if memory serves.

tom scott's picture
tom scott

This is what I use in Washington.
https://www.smartfoodservice.com/locations/
This was originally cash and carry.  They carry both bleached and unbleached flours in 25 and 50 lb bags. I think it's called Grain Craft and the Bread flour is called Power.  https://www.graincraft.com/
I also use winco for smaller amounts of Rye and WW.