Milling & Baking News - April 28, 2015 - 7

Editorial

Need to analyze per capita peak

he recent estimate by the Economic Research patterns, the calculation that means the most is actual
Service pointing to per capita flour disap- annual wheat flour disappearance. Even as per capita
pearance in the United States holding nearly has been amazingly steady, domestic disappearance has
unchanged for a dozen years in a row is not only been nicely rising year after year. Even with per capita
statistically miraculous but reveals a uniqueness for use down a whopping 100 pounds from its peak in the
grain-based foods that is shared by few, if any, other early 1900s, when American food patterns starkly difmajor food sectors. When the
fered from the present, total usSaying that present-day milling is
steadiness of per capita flour
age of flour is twice what it was
benefiting from the horrific per capita as recently as the early 1960s.
use, which amounted to 135
losses experienced in the past century
pounds in 2014 and has been
While individual food products
may be claiming a victory simply based may be cited that enjoyed much
near that total since 2002, is
on living in a different time.
measured against the turmoil
greater growth than this, it is
that ruled in wheat flour and related food businesses rare the food sector as large as wheat flour that comes
in that period, this stability becomes remarkable. These even near approaching such performance.
are years that witnessed unprecedented price swings in
Following is a table averaging the principal meawheat and flour prices, that saw earth-shaking changes sures of wheat flour consumption by decades from
in ownership of both wheat milling and its major cus- the post-World War II 1950s into this, the second detomer base in baking, that saw wheat milling in other cade of the 21st century:
parts of the world undergo tortuous shifts.
Average
Annual
Per capita
No easy explanation is at hand for the hugely posiconsumption
increase
consumption
tive aspects of the wheat milling business in America
(cwts)
(cwts)
(lbs)
as compared not just to other U.S. food sectors but re2010s
423,630,500
3,269,000
134.3
lated to how milling has performed in other nations.
2000s
405,715,200
442,800
136.8
1990s
381,125,100
9,480,800
142.8
Even as per capita flour held steady, many important
1980s
299,680,500
5,457,000
122.7
food industries experienced shrinking markets due
1970s
244,518,200
3,588,400
113.6
largely to demand pattern shifts that reflected negative
1960s
220,010,100
1,414,200
114.4
1950s
207,611,100
1,052,900
126.8
consumer demand trends. More than a few of these
other food sectors are experiencing recently the same
massive shifts in consumer food purchases that hit the
It is obvious that the new century began disapwheat flour market in the first 70 or so years of the 20th pointingly for milling and its customers in baking.
century. In that timeframe, flour per capita consump- That a marked rebound began in the second decade
tion dropped from 232 pounds at the start of the 20th not only is reason for an optimistic assessment of
century to a low of 110 pounds in the early 1970s.
where milling is heading in a period when consumer
Saying that present-day milling is benefiting from tastes and demands are showing faster transformathe horrific per capita losses experienced in the past tions than ever experienced in the stormy past. Flour
century may be claiming a victory simply based on milling and grain-based foods have many reasons to
living in a different time. But whatever the reason, in- celebrate their current performance. Even such procluding the rapid increase occurring in per capita use longed stability as ruling in per capita consumption
in the closing decades of the past century, millers owe needs to be understood and analyzed as a record
their predecessors great gratitude for the stability cur- proudly achieved, but one that needs constant attenrently ruling.
tion through industrywide efforts. Successes in such
While the per capita figure, determined by divid- efforts are essential to preventing reversals and pering total domestic disappearance by average popula- haps even a way to cause a per capita uptrend after
tion, has great importance for what it says about eating this record long period of stability. MBN
MORTON SOSLAND, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
WE'RE EAGER TO GET YOUR FEEDBACK: E-mail editor@sosland.com or write to us at
Milling & Baking News, 4801 Main Street, Suite 650, Kansas City, Mo, 64112
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7bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com
/ March 13, 2007
Milling & Baking News

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