[phil21]

I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bags".

One thing I've done is found a local restaurant supply store and had a friend with a business tax ID add me to their account (account is setup to actually charge sales tax so it's all good there). At these places, very little is in shortage - plenty of flour to be had of all types they typically stock. The only shortages I've noticed have been in chicken at the moment, and of course PPE. Everything else seems quite well stocked for the time being.

The downside of course is that when you want to buy some chicken thighs, your minimum order qty is 40lbs. But I started a co-op buying group with my friends in the neighborhood and just spend some time splitting things up into usable quantities.

It's come in handy for stuff that is hard to come buy in the grocery stores or costco like chocolate chips. Of course, the minimum qty of those is 25lbs so we had to divy quite a few up! The cost savings are absolutely astronomical on a per-unit basis for most staple items.

I've also noticed at least at my local costco they have started to get "alternative" sources redirected from the commercial supply chain. Such as 50lb bags of rice in plane white nylon bags with a sticker slapped on it. This seems to support the theory that packaging (both material and labor) is the bottleneck for retail staple goods.

Add in all the waste of every 23 year old who has never baked in their life buying 20lbs of flour to go bad in their pantry and things.

[NaOH]

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bags".

Yep. I own a bakery. My big-name ingredient supplier doesn't carry the flour brands commonly seen in supermarkets, and the same is true in reverse. Likewise, the flour I buy doesn't include the labeling seen with retail products, like a nutritional panel. If I want the detailed information a manufacturer offers I request that from my supplier or the manufacturer. As an example, I was looking into a new source for one ingredient recently (malted barley flour), and the sales representative also gave me all the secondary documents (total of 70 pages):

Food Safety Audit Report

Certificate of Conformity

Material Safety Data Sheet

Certificate of Analysis

Kosher Certification

Technical Data Sheet

Corporate Certificate of Liability Insurance

Product Guarantee

Product Specifications Sheet

[enhdless]

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

[NaOH]

In the US (and Europe, too, I believe) food manufacturers are increasingly mandated to be able to trace their ingredients back to the original source. Each handler along the way is expected to do this, so theoretically there's a paper trail from the beginning to the end on a store shelf.

If there are particular foods for which you'd like this information, I would check company websites and then reach out to producers if that isn't getting the information you want. I can't say how forthcoming companies are with this documentation. Keep in mind trade secrets could be involved that might be violated just by providing that level of specificity.

[Scoundreller]

> trade secrets

I got this excuse when I wanted to know if “natural ingredients” included cinnamon in the cinnamon spread I bought once.

After stating that I had a cinnamon allergy, they confirmed to me that it did.

[s5300]

Inquire with the manufacturer listed on the packaging? There's always some sort of chain to information on packaging, though unless there are laws in place against this, I think we're moving closer to that starting with a qr code than a company name and phone number/address...

[projektfu]

Calling/writing to customer service is usually a good start. A lot of this information they are required to have even if they don't need to write it on the label.

[mcny]

> Add in all the waste of every 23 year old who has never baked in their life buying 20lbs of flour to go bad in their pantry and things.

How quickly does processed flour go bad? I’d imagine as long as you store in a dry, air-tight box, it should be ok?

[aaronblohowiak]

White flour lasts a long time. Whole wheat goes rancid faster. Just like white vs brown rice.

[steerablesafe]

> white flour lasts a long time.

Unless you have moths or bread beetles.

[AnimalMuppet]

How many 23-year-olds know to do that? How many are going to remember, and actually do it?

[groby_b]

Unless they bought a single 20 lbs bag, or they open all four bags, they have 15 lbs stored airtight and dark by default.

Also, I hear kids these days occasionally use the Internets to learn how to do things.

But even if you open them all and let them sit on a counter, you get at least several months out of them unless you get insects in there. And if that happens, trust me, you've learned a life-long lesson.

[TylerE]

I remember reading a similar article about disinfecting wipes - the bottleneck is actually in the plastic containers, not the wipes, and so a few companies have started packaging them in bags like baby wipes.

[groby_b]

Except... they were available in bags pre-Covid, too.