[MattGaiser]

Everyone is buying a mega bag thinking that they will now suddenly do a lot of baking. My mother did this. My grandmother did this. Many of my 23 year old friends did this.

They end up baking one loaf and then just forgetting about it in the pantry, but they bought a 20 lb bag because of how much they expected to bake.

[SECProto]

> Everyone is buying a mega bag thinking that they will now suddenly do a lot of baking

I normally go through a 5kg bag of flour every month or two, just baking some breads and cakes occasionally. So far, I've gone through almost 20kg of flour in 6 weeks. And I know many others who are baking much more than usual

That said, mine is mostly a couple loaves of bread every 3 days substituting a couple bread products from the grocery store every 2 or 3 days. So not causing extra demand for the ingredient, just a different format (i get my flour by the 5 to 10kg bag, the grocery store that normally does my baking likely gets theirs in ...slightly larger volumes)

[matthewowen]

I don't think I've ever seen a 20lb bag of flour in a grocery store. That's a really big bag. That's about 4 gallons by volume.

My wife bought a 50lb bag today: our local bakery buys that size for their own purposes. It's a good sized sack.

I do not think there are many people out buying 20lb bags of flour.

[LyndsySimon]

We bought 40lb of flour and 20lb of sugar in early March; it was one of our last “preps” going into all this. We don’t normally go through either in any quantity - my wife and are both usually on keto. We’ve used all the flour (and have bought more), and most of the sugar.

We got both at our local Walmart.

[teruakohatu]

My flour usage has gone way up, but there was a shortage of yeast in my city and when I was eventually able to get some, it was a werid brand and such a large package that had more yeast that I could use in years.

[bluedino]

So where are all the 2lb bags then?

[ascorbic]

Usually domestic sales in small bags are a tiny fraction of the amount sold in large bags to commercial users. When consumption switched to home use then those small bags sold out quickly. The small bags are still there in the supply chain, it's just that the demand has gone through the roof so it's hard to find them.

[Scoundreller]

When the cheaper 20lb bags sell out, people buy the 2lb bags.

My guess is that more production is for the 20lb bags, and the 2lb bags usually sat on the shelf longer.