September 28, 2010 - 9:54am
GFS now carries Pillsbury Bakery Flour
I finally found what I was looking for at GFS. It is a Pillsbury brand Short Patent Flour. It is unbleached, unbromated and unenriched. I actually like it better (and have had better results) than KA Bread Flour.
They don't however, stock it in many of the stores, so you have to call and ask them to order it in. In Cincinnati, that means a 24 hour turn-around. I ordered 100 pounds yesterday at 3:30 and picked it up this morning at 8:05.
It is $18.99 for a 50# bag, or a total of $0.38 per pound.
When calling, the item number is 561096.
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Thanks.
I was at GFS last week, and they had zero, nada, no unbleached flour, as has been the case all summer. I'd given up on them, and when I asked the clerk, he just said, no we don't stock unbleached.
Now I know to ask them to order it.
I'm about 200 miles north of you, another Buckeye guy.
On another front, I noticed my local WalMart now stocks KA AP and BF, for the first time since I started baking back in April.
Small bags though, 5 pounders.
They carry a whole bunch of stuff that's not stocked at retail locations. That include many more types flour beside two or three kinds you usually see on the shelves there. There used to be a master list on their website, but for some insane reason it is now only available to "registered corporate buyers" or some crap like that.
I visited my local GFS a couple weeks ago and talked with the manager of the store. I commented on how the only flour on the shelf was bleached and bromated, and that I wanted to source 50# of KAF Sir Lancelot high gluten flour.
He told me that they have 60,000 items in their computer database and could get me any flour I wanted. As it turned out, I was able to obtain that 50# of Sir Lance (for $20) by ordering it through some friends who own a restaurant, so I didn't place the order with GFS.
Do take the time to talk meet the manager of your local GFS store and have him/her look into the brands you're interested in. They are very customer-service oriented and if it's available through their distributors, they'll get it for you.
I called a local GFS to order KA AP flour in 50# but the manager said "not in catalog." I also emailed GFS corporate asking for King Arthur Flour/AP product number and received reply, "it does not seem that we carry that brand."
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/distributors.html
Then ask your GFS manager if they do business with that distributor. If so, they should be able to get the flour for you.
BTW, KAF AP is not a professional flour so it may not be available through a food distributor. You'll have to ask for Sir Galahad flour - which is the bakery version of the home marketed KAF AP.
Check out the professional flours at the KAF website.
GFS *are* a distributor. They buy what they sell from manufacturers and importers. If they did business with KA, they'd show up in the list. They don't, so they don't. You'd have to ask them why they don't, but they do not have a full line of bakery supply stuff, even of the vendors that they carry. It's not a segment of the market they serve well.
http://www.gfs.com/files/pdf/gms/ProductGuide.pdf