Sensibly Priced Bread Flour - Where Has It All Gone ?

molerat

There is no shortage of supermarket own brand reasonably priced plain and SR flour but none that I visit - Tesco, Asda, Aldi and now Lidl - have any bread flour that you don't have to trade in your first born as a down payment.  Lidl were the last outpost but my 2 locals have not had any for about 4 weeks or so.  So where has it all gone ? We were told during lockdown that they could not keep up with the amount of consumer sized bags but now it seems they have cottoned on to the fact that if they can sell it at £2 a bag why should they sell it at 75p and make less profit. Looks like Sainsbury's have some and are now the cheapest - there is a shocker - at £1.05 a bag but the closest to me is about 20 miles.  Even Asda have stopped doing there weighed out 1Kg bag.

Bacman

Here's a tip - you can make the cheapest all-purpose or plain flour into bread flour - weigh the flour you are using and add 5% of Vital Wheat Gluten to it. You can buy this ingredient from Amazon or Ebay easily, it costs a bit however you don't need much; if you use 1kg of plain flour you would use 50g of Vital Wheat Gluten.

Vital Wheat Gluten is the glutenous part of wheat, natural and used in keto bread making. It will make your plain flour into bread flour...

millie

Asda have not had any of their own make bread flour since the start of the pandemic, I did manage to get some white in Aldi and wholewheat in Tesco a couple of months ago. Aldi had both in last week @ 55p a bag. Although when I was in there today I noticed they only had white. I tend to buy it when I see it now because it seems to disappear periodically.

Bacman

Tried the Asda white bread flour a while back, not impressed, quite heavy flour and sticks a bit to the top of your mouth when made into bread. Not worth buying. Allinsons flour is very good, Canadian wheat.

molerat

Must check in Aldi then, they stopped stocking it a while back and hadn't really looked as Lidl was a reliable source.  I used to carry my tub plus one bag, I now try to have tub plus 3 bags - much the same as anything else in my food cupboard now.

203846930

55p in Lidl, Glenrothes today, plenty of stock for the white but none for the wholewheat

molerat

duncanthedog said:

55p in Lidl, Glenrothes today, plenty of stock for the white but none for the wholewheat

Lidl are my usual go to but, as I said above, my 2 locals have not had any for weeks.  Not seen wholemeal in there for around a year or so.  Shopping tomorrow so will see what they have.

millie

Aldi only had white today but there was quite a good supply of it.

KatrinaWaves

Bacman said:

Tried the Asda white bread flour a while back, not impressed, quite heavy flour and sticks a bit to the top of your mouth when made into bread. Not worth buying. Allinsons flour is very good, Canadian wheat.

They had 4kg of Allinsons strong white bread flour on clearance at my local tesco about a month ago. They let me buy all 5 bags even when the flour 'restrictions' were in place as it was on clearance. No idea why but Im well stocked!

DCFC79

Not sure which Sainsbury's you use OP but a bag of 1.5kg plain flour is 80p in my store.

molerat

DCFC79 said:

Not sure which Sainsbury's you use OP but a bag of 1.5kg plain flour is 80p in my store.

From the web site, yes 80p for plain / SR but £1 + for strong bread flour.