The Fresh Loaf

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Costco No Longer Carrying Central Milling Flour in California

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

Costco No Longer Carrying Central Milling Flour in California

Costco is no longer carrying Central Milling Bread flour in California and the Southwest. They are continuing supply in the Northwest. Instead they're offering plain all purpose organic (unbleached) flour supplied by Ardent Mills (two 10# at ~$10 and change). It does not contain diastatic malt. So for many of us another, too good to be true supply situation has come to a slippery end.

I am now completely open to any and all ideas on an alternate supply chain arrangement. One is to make runs up to Keith Giusto in Petaluma for a couple of 50# per trip.

 

Wild-Yeast 

jimbtv's picture
jimbtv

I have to ask if you have tried the Ardent Mills product? Are you sure that it won't perform to your standards?

Maybe you already know this but generally speaking, diastatic malt is added to milled flour to adjust the falling number or falling time. This is done so that one batch performs like any other coming from the mill. If diastatic malt isn't present it is because it wasn't needed.

I'd be interested in your reasons for not wanting to use the Ardent Mills flour.

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

No I haven't tried it yet and no I am not sure about whether it will perform to my standards.

I've had my source change several times before. Supply of organic bread flour is in truth a lot more complicated than most bakers realize. I've had this occur several times before with mediocre to disastrous results. The worst result had my Dachshund tossing the piece of proffered bread over her shoulder - though quite comical I trust that nose more than my own. The other point is that Central Mills has established a consistency of their flour for nearly five years now and I am wont to leave them if it is at all possible to re-establish the supply chain, direct or otherwise.

Ardent Mills is a Miller-as-a-Service entity Trying to find "anyone" in the organization that actually connects with a line of trust through to the actual grower does not exist. This leaves questions of liability of reference regarding their supply network of thoroughly vetted, trustworthy and independent growers. Without personal reference of an individual (or individuals) who take ultimate responsibility for their product is still something that I highly respect personally and in business operations. Corporate spokes people are not known as being responsible for anything other than reading a script.

Costco now does over $4 Billion in organic food alone and has gone into the business of providing loans for land and equipment so that farmers can increase their "organic" supply base - I am concerned over conflict of interest issues as they begin to monopolize this market segment all in the name of lower prices for the consumer.

Wild-Yeast

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and it seems ti work very well and less money than Costco too - a 25 # bag at less than $10 and only $8 when on sale.

suave's picture
suave

The only thing our local Costco ever carried is bleached Conagra H&R flour.  On the bright side - Walmart now has its own unbleached AP flour. $1.70 per bag and indistinguishable from GM AP in use.

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

I don't belong to Costco, and I have never heard of Ardant Mills. However, as an alternate source for Central Milling flour, how about going directly to the distributor ... actually, also the proprietor, I believe. I am speaking of Keith Giusto. CM will ship to consumers. You can get 5# of some products. Other products come in larger quantities. Shipping is fast, if you live in CA, and is reasonable, IMO.

David

suave's picture
suave

Ardent Mills is an unholy child of Conagra and Cargill.

Scurvy's picture
Scurvy

that Costco here carries Wheat Montana AP.

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

The saga of the search for organic bread flour continues but comes to a happy conclusion though slightly more expensive.

From the original post:

Costco is no longer carrying Central Milling Bread flour in California and the Southwest. They are continuing supply in the Northwest. Instead they're offering plain all purpose organic (unbleached) flour supplied by Ardent Mills (two 10# at ~$10 and change). It does not contain diastatic malt. So for many of us another, too good to be true supply situation has come to a slippery end.

I am now completely open to any and all ideas on an alternate supply chain arrangement. One is to make runs up to Keith Giusto in Petaluma for a couple of 50# per trip.

 From "Things Did Not Go Well post...,":

No, I haven't tried it yet and no I am not sure about whether it will perform to my standards.

I've had my source change several times before. Supply of organic bread flour is in truth a lot more complicated than most bakers realize. I've had this occur several times before with mediocre to disastrous results. The worst result had my Dachshund tossing the piece of proffered bread over her shoulder - though quite comical I trust that nose more than my own. The other point is that Central Milling has established a consistency of their flour for nearly five years now and I am wont to leave them if it is at all possible to re-establish the supply chain, direct or otherwise.

Ardent Mills is a Miller-as-a-Service entity. Trying to find "anyone" in the organization that actually connects with a line of trust through to the actual grower does not exist. This leaves questions of liability of reference regarding their supply network of thoroughly vetted, trustworthy and independent growers. Without personal reference of an individual (or individuals) who take ultimate responsibility for their product is still something that I highly respect personally and in business operations. Corporate spokespersons are not known as being responsible for anything other than reading a script.

Costco now does over $4 Billion in organic food alone and has gone into the business of providing loans for land and equipment so that farmers can increase their "organic" supply base - I am concerned over conflict of interest issues as they begin to monopolize this market segment all in the name of lower prices for the consumer.

Excerpted from this post, "":

[A "Test Coupon" is a test build from the assembled ingredients to insure that they meet specifications. The practice began in the welding industry but has now spread throughout high tech and is now used to describe a common practice to insure compliance.]

The implication for business and baking is to sample the bulk flour before committing to a large buy. I just completed the test coupon for Costco California's "new" supplier for organic flour Ardent Mills, according to their corporate website, "A company that offers the industry’s broadest range of flours, mixes, blends and specialty products, customized to meet your needs and backed by unrivaled technical support, customer service and the supply assurance of a coast-to-coast network".

The two test loaves came out well in physical appearance but failed taste (low complexity with loss of the pastry aftertaste) and storage abilities (staled out in under two days). I exercised Costco's return policy on the two ten pound sacks minus that used for the test loaves which sold for $10.99.

Taking David Snyder's advice:

An order was placed with Central Milling, Petaluma, CA for a 50 pound sack of their "Organic Artisan Bakers Craft Plus" flour. This is the same flour as used in all the foremost artisan bread bakeries in Northern California. The price was $38.71 for the flour and $18.49 Fedex ground - total cost came to $57.20 - (~ $1.14/lb). Costco was charging $13.99 for 20 pounds for Central Millings Organic AP malted flour (~ $0.70/lb). A trip to Petaluma would have raised the delivery costs to over twice the Fedex ground charges (also this does not include personal travel time) thus cancelling this as an option. The loss of Costco's buying power comes to $0.44/lb (though this is somewhat offset by the fact that the new flour just ordered from Central Milling is higher in protein and contains diastatic malt). The order was placed on Thursday afternoon and was delivered on Saturday Morning.

Takeaway:

Costco's Ardent Mills Organic Flour offering failed to fulfill my requirements. In fact the taste was highly inferior and the keeping ability did not last through a second day. The search for a replacement flour led directly back to Costco's original supplier Central Milling in Petaluma, California. I think the biggest takeaway is the "hollowing out" of the organic flour market by corporate entities that have no deep empathy for artisan bread and their products only proved this out. 

Wild-Yeast

sparklesNoCA's picture
sparklesNoCA

I thought I'd read somewhere it was.

sparklesNoCA's picture
sparklesNoCA

.

Norcalbaker's picture
Norcalbaker

the WF 365 is Central Milling AP Beehive,  While an excellent flour for cookies, quick breads, pie crust, pancakes, biscuit, or soft dinner rolls. The ash and protein specs are not suitable for bread applications or rustic texture goods like biscott.

Protein  10%-10.5%
Ash  0.56

 

 

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21720/availability-central-milling-co-flour

I'm not sure this is still valid though.

A trip to Petaluma is a great idea.

Wild-Yeast

Norcalbaker's picture
Norcalbaker

I know a couple of bread baking clubs organized on Meet-up (one in LA area, one in Berkeley area) place group orders for Central Milling flours.  if you're in those area, you may want to check out baking club resources.

Fortunately, I live on the Napa valley side, so I just drive to Keith Giusto's to stock up.

Barbara Bowman's picture
Barbara Bowman

I wonder if there are enough people in the Berkeley area who would be interested in buying Central Milling flour that we could either 1) convince Costco to get it back (I've seen notes work on them before), or 2) make a buyers' group of people who can handle buying 50# sacks of flour, and get it delivered every so often. That's quite a bit of flour...

Ravenheart's picture
Ravenheart

Azurestandard.com delivers to “drops” in most states. My drop is a House 6 blocks away with 1x a month delivery. Some more urban areas have more frequent deliveries. The extra steps to sign up and register with your local drop are worth it. They carry central milling flour, a 50# sack is 52.something

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

Thanks Ravenheart. I'll keep that in mind next time Costco drops supplying it. I've been ordering directly from Central Milling till Costco began carrying the flour again. It's about $.50/lb for Organic AP Malted my standard baking flour.

Wild-Yeast

Riley's picture
Riley

Our Costco is carrying a Central  Milling  Organic blend of hard red wheat and malted barley-10% protein.  It’s tons cheaper than KA.  I use it for cookies etc.  Could it  be used just to maintain my starters or is  that a bad idea?  I’m in full baking mode so  I feed twice a day. 

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

We use it for our main red-winter white wheat bread flour. This also includes starter feedings. I think this makes it an all around good idea.

Good luck on your full baking mode...,

-Wild Yeast 

Riley's picture
Riley

Great, thanks.  My wallet thanks you too.