It Takes a Lot of ‘Bread’ to Bake Bread

The other day my sister asked me if I’d noticed the high price of groceries. Sure, I told her, but I didn’t think things seemed as out of whack as she intimated. Until, that is, I went to the store to buy my favorite King Arthur bread flour. I bake a lot of bread and I like to think of myself as the Little Red Hen in the children’s story because I buy whole wheat berries and grind them for whole wheat. King Arthur’s flour has long become my preferred brand for some other things though, their bread flour in particular, for baguettes and bagels. I used the last of mine last week and didn’t give it a thought. Then I went to QFC, a grocery store super close to my house. $9.99 for a five pound bag of King Arthur bread flour! I figured it may be that store has higher prices, so I checked Fred Meyer, about a mile away. Both stores incidentally, are owned by Kroger. $9.49 at Fred Meyer. I looked at Safeway. Same story. Now I was on a quest. I remembered Target carries groceries and I looked online at their prices. Nearly ten bucks at the Target a bit south, somewhat less at the Target a bit up the road to the north. Why that discrepancy would be my question. Two stores with not much more than fifteen minutes between them. Next, I looked online at the King Arthur site and found the same five pound bag of bread flour for only about $6 but of course, shipping was exorbitant. My husband suggested this was all due to my King Arthur fetish and thought I should look at plain old Gold Medal. So I did. Nearly ten bucks for their bread flour as well. I imagine this all has to do with the war in Ukraine. Still, I can’t believe the disparity in prices, even between stores owned by the same large company. I’m not willing to give up baking at this point because there’s nothing like fresh, homemade bread but holy moly.

Image courtesy Couleur on Pixabay.com