Why I Will Never Buy Bread From A Grocery Store!

Learn how to save money at the grocery store by making your own bread. Here I’ll break down the costs and analyze the difference.

It’s no secret that prices are on the rise. From fuel at the pump and lumber, all the way to wheat prices, our wallets have been impacted. For most people, bread is a household staple. So, because bread prices have been impacted by the rising cost of wheat, we wanted to share the most affordable way to get the BEST bread: make it yourself!

There are so many types of bread you can make, and with different varieties of flour. In this post, I’m going to compare the cost of making Einkorn wheat bread with that of buying a loaf from your typical grocer.

What are the benefits of Einkorn bread?

1) Einkorn is an ancient wheat, so its chemical composition hasn’t been modified, unlike some traditional wheats

2) Einkorn is higher in protein, essential fatty acids, phosphorous, potassium and lutein

3) Einkorn is tastier! (In my opinion)

4) If made using an Einkorn sourdough starter, there is minimal gluten content. Sourdough einkorn bread can be perfect for those who wish to limit gluten consumption

What is the typical cost of bread?

To answer this question, we took samples from two major grocery stores in Ontario, Canada: Loblaws and Walmart

Loblaws Prices:

First, we looked at the prices of 170 non-discounted loaves of bread at Loblaws. The median cost per 100g of bread is about $0.75. In fact, about 87% of all bread is between $0.44 and $1.28 per 100g. Assuming 500g per loaf, that’s a range of $2.20 and $6.40 for a loaf! It may seem cheap, but compared to making it yourself, the cost is astronomical.

Walmart Prices:

Second, we looked at the price at Walmart. Walmart is notorious for putting pressure on suppliers to offer the best prices, which gives them a very competitive advantage in pricing. We looked at the prices of 136 samples of bread available in Ontario, Canada. The median cost per 100g of bread is $0.59, $0.16 cheaper than Loblaws. 77% of prices are between $0.38 and $0.72 per 100g. That’s between $2.10 and $3.60 per 500g loaf. Although this is certainly cheaper than Loblaws, on average it’s still more expensive than what you can make yourself, as we will show.

What is the cost of making your own bread?

It all depends on the type of flour you use. We use Einkorn flour for the reasons mentioned above. Now, you’ll It all depends on the type of flour you use. We use Einkorn flour for the reasons mentioned above. Now, you’ll definitely hear people shrug it off because it’s too expensive, but we’ll show you that the price is actually cheaper than if you bought even the lowest priced bread from the grocery store.

Now, It’s fine to buy small quantities of flour if you’re just experimenting, or trying new flours, but once you have your favourite, it’s most economical to buy it in bulk. This is what we do with Einkorn flour. We were able to secure 20kg of organic Einkorn flour for $128.90. We don’t get any kickback from this; they’re just a good company. The flour came pre-milled, although you can just buy the seeds and mill yourself

The Recipe

The recipe we use calls for about 708 grams of Einkorn flour. This includes the flour in the starter, and dough. We’ll go over the recipe in a separate post, but this is just to give you an idea of the flour input going into our bread. When you include water in the mix, the actual dough weight is about 1.2kg. For simplicity, let’s just say that the bread end result will be 1.2kg. (In reality, it will likely weigh more due to the sourdough bread proofing.)

So, by using 708 grams per loaf, we can make 28 loaves of bread. If we divide our total cost of flour by this, we get an average of $4.57 per loaf. This may seem expensive, but you need to remember that each loaf is 1.2kg. When we divide this by 12 to get the cost per 100g, (like we did with our sample,) we get $0.38!

	Homemade Sourdough Organic Einkorn Bread	Low End	High End	Retail Einkorn Bread
Cost per 100g	$0.38	$0.44	$1.28	$2.98

Bottom Line

This might make you think a bit before buying another loaf at the grocery store. Inflation is not the only risk you might face. Grocery stores have also been notorious for charging high prices for bread. They’ve even been charged for a bread price-fixing scheme back in 2018.

We’ve We’ve shown you that even an expensive, high quality, and nutritious flour can beat grocery store pricing, if you make the bread yourself. Now you should be able to find other flours in bulk and perhaps get an even better price. Do yourself a favour, try to bake your own! It’s an awesome hobby and experience, and you can even pass down your sourdough starter for generations to enjoy

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Other Posts you might like!

5 Ways to Increase Vegetable Consumption