Wheat, flour prices on the rise after Russia’s Ukraine attack
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(NewsNation) — These days, it’s costing more dough to make dough.
While record-high gas prices are getting a lot of attention, what a lot of people are also focused on is the soaring cost of wheat and flour.
Russia and Ukraine usually produce a third of the global supply of wheat and flour, but the ongoing invasion has cut off their exports. Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have halted shipping from Ukraine’s ports, and financial sanctions have put payments for purchases of Russian wheat in doubt, traders and bankers say.
According to the Department of Agriculture, Ukraine had been on track for a record year of wheat exports, before Russia invaded two weeks ago.
So far this year, wheat futures have risen by about 40%. Just this past week, the price of wheat has jumped by 24%.
Robb Mackie, president and CEO of the American Bakers Association, pointed out wheat and flour are very basic staple products.
“When there’s a short supply, or disruption in the supply chain, that gets felt by the bakers and, ultimately, the consumer,” Mackie said.
This means there’s going to be more competition for American wheat.
“It’s great for the wheat grower,” Mackie said.
One wheat farmer, Doug Rebout of Wisconsin, is ambivalent about the situation.
His daughter was adopted from Ukraine in 2005.
“I don’t like being able to profit from despair in another country, but it is the way the global market works,” Rebout said.
Now is the time that Ukrainian farmers would be planting their new wheat and grain crops, so the worldwide flour grab is expected to get even tighter.
“A 50-pound bag, we used to get it at $15, $17, now it’s up to $21,” Savvas Andrews, owner of The Bagel Cafe in Las Vegas, said.
With flour getting harder to come by because of shifting global demand, major manufacturers to neighborhood bakeries to home chefs across the country are all feeling the pinch.
“When it comes down to it, you just have to turn that price around to the customers, and you don’t like to do it,” Scott Simon, the co-owner of Simple Simon Bakery in Appleton, Wisconsin, said.
