“We sell 50-pound bags of flour at our retail store in Vermont, and they’re flying out the door.”

We asked food businesses nationwide how they are handling coronavirus. This update comes from Bill Tine, King Arthur Flour, Norwich, VT: (1/7)

"Last Friday, we sent 1 million bags of flour on the road to retail stores. Our volume for the last few weeks was double the volume of what we would see for fall and holiday baking, our two big seasons. Two weeks in March outpacing holiday baking— it’s incredible." (2/7)

"We’ve done some research and found that only a quarter of the people buying our flour are stockpiling. The majority of people are just baking but four to 10 times the usual amount." (3/7)

"People who were baking monthly are baking weekly, and people who were baking weekly are baking daily. Those people who would’ve used two or three five-pound bags of flour in a month? Now they’re using a 50-pound bag because they’re baking bread two or three times a week." (4/7)

"Because the supply chains for the food service industry and for consumers are distinct, it’s not that easy to redirect flour. The food service mills package 50-lb. bags of flour, while retail mills, on the other hand, pack 5 or 10-lb. bags." (5/7)

"How fast these packaging lines can operate determines how much flour we can supply, but there’s no issue with wheat at all—there’s tons of wheat. And there is enough flour. We’ve increased production and we’re coming up with innovative solutions to do more." (6/7)

Read more here. (7/7) https://www.bonappetit.com/story/food-businesses-covid-19