Packaged food prices have risen with thecost of ingredients

Tag : Chocolate Ingredients

One year, a local man paid $500 for her pie, all of it donated tolocal charities. But lately, Ms. Durling's five grandchildren andtwo great-grandchildren have had to settle for fewer treats, sinceher baking schedule has dropped from several days a week to one.And when she does bake, she forgoes some premium ingredients.
"I don't even look at Crisco any more," she says, noting that evenher second choice for shortening, Fluffo, has risen from $1.19 to$2.39 at her local supermarket.
According to the most recent Canadian Consumer Price Index, therehas been a 4.3-per-cent rise in prices for food purchased fromstores over the past year, led by a 13.2-per-cent rise in pricesfor bakery products. Price hikes for other food products closelyrelated to grain, such as breakfast cereal, rice, pasta, flour andflour-based mixes have continued to increase in the 12 months toJuly, 2008, according to the index.
The hikes are easily noticeable on store shelves. Ms. Morris saysshe used to pay $10 for five kilograms of rye flour; now it's $25for the same amount. Other baking ingredients, including chocolate,nuts and dairy, have also increased in price.
Many bakers have had to resort to creative ways to avoid the pinch.
After a close reading of her grocery bills left Tanya Belangerdisgusted, she began taking inventory of her cupboards, thenfinding recipes that called for only those ingredients. On herblog, where she goes by "Sunday Baker," she issued a similar"pantry challenge" to her readers.
"I had a jar of apricot preserves sitting in the pantry for thelongest time because we are not apricot lovers," Ms. Belanger wrotein an e-mail. "I made apricot bars with them and they were a hit!"
But she says that because packaged food prices have risen with thecost of ingredients, she's actually baking more.
Ms. Belanger - a 31-year-old Wisconsin resident who
bakes for friends and family - now buys ingredients in bulk whenshe spots them on sale. She then bakes large quantities of buns orbreads and freezes them.
"Some of this sounds extreme," she says, but "we realized that allit takes is some preplanning and a few days of hard work, and youcan have a pantry and freezer full of homemade goods that cost youat least half of what you would pay buying it prepackaged at thestore."
Others are seeking substitutes. Ever since Ivonne Mellozzi and herfriend, Lisa Cifelli, co-founded the online community Daring Bakerstwo years ago, they've been issuing monthly baking challenges totheir members, who number 1,100 from several different countries.
Normally the challenges go from croissants to cr