Flour prices and availability
Hi Everyone,
I had a very enjoyable chat this afternoon with Stan Ginzburg of NYBakery (located in San Diego) because I, like many of you, received an email from him as a potential test baker for recipes coming from his new book. Aside from being a very dedicated, erudite and wonderful individual, he has offered a 10% discount on flour purchases made between May20 and Aug20, 2010, for those who have offerred to be test bakers. Now that's a nice plus in and of itself, but the real plus was finding the amazing array of flours, including some very nice regional and Italian flours "00" which are not readily available to many of us because of our geography (Tulsa, OK, for yours truly). But, here is the best deal of the day, his prices for the many numerous flours that he carries, both his proprietary brand and others, such as KAF, are much, much reduced than what we might pay on either the KAF website or at Whole Foods. So, please do yourself a favor and check out their website and I'm certain you will be most happy with the selection and pricing. The selection was the best I've seen anywhere in the US, same with pricing. Be sure to tell him, "Bernie sent me!". Just kidding. {:-)
Bernie Piel
Tulsa, OK
I found also that the NYB prices are lower than those from the KA website. I put an order in and got the 10% rebate the same day on my paypal account.
Had a little nagging thought in my head though - if every one of the (so far) 200 testers orders these (required) rarer, not everywhere available, ingredients from NYB (and will be probably afterwards a repeat customer) - that's a nice little extra bonus...
Don't forget to include these expenses in your cost comparisons.
I'd love to order from Stan. He has terrific offerings. I'd also love to try some of the Heartland Mill flours. But when the shipping and handling fees are higher than the cost the flour, common sense prevails.
It's a bummer and the unfortunate reality of mail order flour.
You are absolutely right, Lindy. For my little bakery I usually order organic flours from a Wholesaler here from Maine, being very much aware of the minimum order price not to incur extra shipping costs. But since I do not expect ever to need 50 lb of cake flour or white rye, and they don't offer smaller amounts I had to go with mail order. I paid $ 29.00 for S & H on my order of $ 62.00. That sucks!!
I wanted to order 5# of a particular flour from Heartland Mill, one I had heard good things about, but hadn't used.
The shipping and handling fee on that $6.12 item was $19.
I passed.
Those costs drive me nutty, so I'm going to get one of those free small priority mail flat rate boxes from the post office and see if I can get 5# of flour into it. If I can, then something is very wrong at the supplier end as it costs less than five bucks to send those flat rate boxes across the US.
So, if Stan is selling at a decent discount from KAF, then NYBakery is still the better way to go unless you live in Vermont or the New England area. I live in the central US so no matter where I purchase, if the seller is on or near the coast, the S&H is going to be close to constant. Stan's prices are lower plus the selection is superb, so, if the S&H is the same, then it makea sense to order from NYBakery.
Bernie
For those with a bakery/restaurant supply house nearby, I've found that a 50 lb. bag of flour from my local bakery/restaurant supply house (which can get just about any flour for me) is significantly less expensive than a 5 lb. bag of the same flour ordered over the Internet, when including the cost of shipping and handling. Ten times the quantity at a significantly lower cost is a no-brainer.
SteveB
www.breadcetera.com
It's like paying for a oneway ticket more than for a roundtrip... You are absolutely right, Steve, I definitely could get a 50 lb bag from my local wholesaler. But unfortunately I already have a storage issue with the flours I regularly use for my bakery. And normally I use cake flour rarely and prefer dark rye to white.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the testing (the weblink to NYB, by the way, is included in their e-mail response to testers), and that will be hopefully worth the extra money.
La Verne,
I cannot get his email to open, a strange but recurring anomaly on my Mac Computer, but the name of his company is NYBakery or NYBakers and located in either San Diego or San Francisco. Perhaps one of the other 200 applicants could supply the website to find his tremendous array of flours. If not, then as soon as I receive his next email, I'll post it for you.
Bernie
Hi Bernie - You really should check with Stan first before posting the contents of any emails he has sent to the volunteer testers for Norm's book, as I'm pretty sure any special offers or discounts are restricted and that his communications are intended only for the testers.
BTW, Stan is not new to TFL. He has been a member here for some time and has purchased advertising on TFL from time to time, listing NYBakers special offers.
Hi Lindy,
Thanks Lindy for your concern, but had you talked w/ Stan, he would have told you that we did discuss my intentions to write my initial comment that started this blog. Your concern is appreciated, Lindy.
Bernie Piel
Hi Bernie,
When I wrote that you should check with Stan before posting the contents of any emails he sends to the testers, I didn't mean that you were off base in any way with your first posting which started this thread. That certainly was not my intention.
It's not a matter of propriety, but of privacy as I recall we had a group of TFL members testing for Peter Reinhart and some of the formuals and techniques began to creep into TFL discussions. Offhand, I can't recall who put a stop to that, but it did cease.
It may be that neither Norm nor Stan would mind such public discussions, but I thought it would be wise to ask first.
says it all. I think we are in for a lot of fun with the recipes he will be sending out. Sorry I seemed to come across bearishly, unfortunately, as I told Stan, I've been an atty for almost 40 years and a baker for much, much less and sometimes, well, ......I appreciate your comments. Now, lets make some bread for Stan regardless of who's flour is used.
Bernie
hi all,
been following this thread with interest since Floyd brought it to my attention yesterday.
first, thanks Bernie, i really appreciate the endorsement. it's the kind of thing that really makes starting NYBakers worthwhile, and i appreciate it.
as for the testing and the discount, i believe i mentioned it in the two solicitations i did for test bakers, so it's not something that's a secret. my feeling is this: everyone who's agreed to test for the New York Bakers Jewish Bakery Book is going to (a) help Norm and myself refine our formulas and instructions so that we don't see the kind of postings we've recently seen about errors in Hamelman, Leader, et. al. and (b) cost our testers money for ingredients that are not commonly available at the local supermarket Costco or Sam's Club -- stuff like ClearJel, almond paste, etc. So the discount is one way of saying "thank you" to everyone who's willing to put in the time, effort and money to test our recipes.
That said, nobody ought to feel obligated to buy from NYB: if you can find it elsewhere and are happy with that, we have no problems with it.
Lindy, i appreciate your comment as well. thanks for standing up for propriety in all things here on TFL (heaven knows i've had my knuckles rapped a few times!)
To those who've signed on, thanks, and to those who didn't make the deadline ... we're sorry, but we had to make the cutoff somewhere.
Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com
I'm amazed at what I hear people are paying for flour! When I opened my deli/bakery in 2005 I was paying $8.90 for a 50 lb bag of "Stallion" unbleached, unbromated HG flour from Bakemark. Granted, the minimum order per delivery was $300, but that was easy to fill in the first two years of business. Prices creeped up steadily until sometime, I believe in late 2006, flour prices skyrocketed to almost $30 per bag for about a 6 month period until settling down to about $12
Flour by comparison to ingredients like eggs, butter, milk, etc... is very inexpensive, but at .01 cents per oz it was extremely difficult to turn a profit and I closed my doors in 2008. I can't even imagine paying as much as .24 per oz.
I guess I'm trying to say, I would definitely try to start a relationship with a local food service distributor to find my supplies at a reasonable cost, even though this meant switching to a different, available, quality product. I have tried KAF products and they are excellent, but could in no way justify spending 24 times the cost on flour.
As a novice bread baker, I found 25# bags at Sams for under $4.00 bag.
Also get my yeast there for like $3.00 for 2#.
I figure my bread is costing about 20 cents a loaf.
It is, however bleached enriched.
Not sure how that affects the final product, but I plan on buying some Robin Hood at BJ"s to test it out.
BTW, I'm almost through my first 25# bag, and considering the number of flops and marginal experiments, I'm glad the flour was cheap. LOL
I am using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day cook book, and love the simplicity.