Another down quarter for US whole wheat flour

Production of whole wheat flour in January-March 2023 was 4.503 million cwts, one of the smallest totals on record, according to data issued May 1 by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Production was down 747,000 cwts, or 14%, from 5.25 million cwts in the first quarter of last year.

At 4.503 million cwts, production of whole wheat flour was the second smallest of any quarter in the eight-plus years the Department has been tracking whole wheat flour production. The first-quarter figure topped only 4.471 million cwts in April-June 2020, considered an aberrant quarter in which bakers may have dialed back production of whole wheat bread to maximize output of standard, best-selling varieties in order to keep pace with a surge in demand associated with the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

Production of 4.503 million cwts compares with average quarterly production of 4.789 million cwts in 2022, 4.947 million cwts in 2021, 5.03 million cwts in 2020 and 5.56 million cwts in 2019.

First-quarter production was down 5% from 4.741 million cwts in the last three months of 2022. Whole wheat flour accounted for 4.3% of total US flour production in the first quarter, compared with 4.9% in the first quarter last year and 4.5% in the final quarter of 2022.

Whole wheat semolina production in January-March was 104,000 cwts, up 9,000 cwts, or 10%, from 95,000 cwts in the first quarter last year. Whole wheat production accounted for 1.2% of total semolina production in the first quarter, the same as a year earlier and compared with 1.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Quarterly production was down 13% from 120,000 cwts in October-December 2022.

Production of whole wheat flour ex-semolina was 4.399 million cwts in January-March, down 756,000, or 15%, from 5.155 million cwts in the first quarter of last year. Production accounted for 4.7% of all wheat flour produced in the quarter ex-semolina, down from 5.2% in January-March 2022 and unchanged from the October-December share. Whole wheat flour production ex-semolina was down 5% from 4.621 million cwts in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Tags: Production, output, whole wheat flour