[Sca-cooks] Downsizing Sugar??

Karen Lyons-McGann karenthechef at gmail.com
Wed Nov 28 16:27:57 PST 2012


In the US, a standard bag of sugar or flour is 5 lb and larger grocers
usually carry 10 lb and 2 lb options for those with largish or smallish
households.  Bulk buying is amounts over 10 lbs that you go to special
retailers for.  Sugars other than white granulated, and other flours/meals
usually  come in 1 or 2 lb packages.

I buy bread flour and all-purpose flour in 25 lb bags at a store catering
to small businesses and bulk purchasers, because I bake almost all our own
bread.   Sugar in 10 lb bags from the same store, cheaper than 10 lbs of
the same brand at the grocery.  I usually only buy sugar in larger than 10
lb amounts if I'm going to be making marmalades or preserves and using it
up speedily, I don't have a spot to keep another large storage bin.

Bonne



On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Margaret Rendell <m_rendell at optusnet.com.au
> wrote:

> The interesting thing from my point of view is that this is really large
> amounts of sugar you're talking about here. The most common sugar packet
> size in my supermarket is 1kg, you also get 1/2kg and 2kg.
>
> Is it that the people on this list are all cooks, and tend be more likely
> to cook things from scratch and to go through larger quantities of cooking
> supplies, or is there more of a habit of buying sugar (and other goods??)
>  in bulk in the US? I've only ever bought sugar in 2kg packets when I'm
> planning on doing a large baking run for a special occasion, or jam.
>
> Margaret/Emma
> Melbourne, Australia/Krae Glas, Lochac
>
>
> > Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > Yeah, I found it amusing too.
> >
> > There are all sorts of people who complained because the 4 pound bag
> > doesn't fill their 5 pound sugar jar.
> >
> > Johnnae
> >
> > On Nov 28, 2012, at 5:36 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
> >
> > > How humorous.  To save our profits, we're going to cut the amount in
> > the package and raise our prices.  And of course, not one word about us
> > paying twice the global retail rate already.  There is price support
> > legislation in the Farm Bill that limits the amount of imported sugar
> > forcing prices to about double the world market rate.  Great for sugar
> > companies, lousy for companies and people who use sugar.  There is a
> > study from Iowa State that says eliminating the subsidies would save
> > sugar consumers $3.5 billion per year and create 20,000 new jobs in the
> > food industry.  The counter argument is ending the price supports would
> > destabilize the domestic sugar industry and probably close a number of
> > refineries, particularly damaging the sugar beet industry, as these tend
> > to be local co-ops.
> > >
> > > It's been quite a while since the pound of coffee became 11 ounces, so
> > I guess the 80% downsizing of a bag of sugar is probably here to stay.
> > >
> > > Bear
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > snipped
> > > Explained: C&H Sugar’s 5-to-4 lb. bags Reduction
> > >
> > > by C&H Sugar on Friday, February 18, 2011 at 2:49pm ·
> > > As many of our fans have noticed, the price of sugar has recently
> > increased. In an effort to alleviate some of the confusion and
> > frustration about this change we wanted to formally address it here.
> > >
> > > As you may be aware, the price of sugar on the world market has nearly
> > doubled since the end of 2008.  [You can see the data here at the USDA
> > site: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/sugar/Data/Table04.xls ]. In
> > order to offset our cost increases, we have had to raise our price per
> > pound of sugar.
> > > In order to keep the cost per bag of sugar down, many retailers
> > converted their store brand product from a 5-pound to a 4-pound bag. In
> > an effort to maintain affordability we decided to do the same with our
> > C&H® brand sugar. The reduction in size, however, is not enough to
> > offset the cost increase in the remaining four pounds of the product.
> > That’s why you’re seeing the price go up and the size go down at the
> > same time. We understand the frustration and we assure you we are doing
> > everything we can to maintain the value and affordability that our
> > consumers expect from our brand. We hope that this has helped alleviate
> > some of the confusion around this recent change.
> > >
> > > We appreciate your loyalty to C&H products. Thank you for your
> > continued support!”
> > >
> >
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