AMERICA RISING:

For many, the order to stay home has engendered a quest for one of home's great comforts, a loaf of bread, a pie or a batch of cookies, still warm from the oven and spreading their perfume beyond the kitchen. These are boom times for baking.

Historically, King Arthur Flour, the Norwich-based center of its own doughy galaxy, has seen increases in baking when people are at home, said Bill Tine, King Arthur's vice president for marketing. Even during previous recessions, baking has surged as a pastime.

But what's happening now is "at this scale, without precedent," Tine said. March sales of King Arthur all-purpose flour were 285% higher than March 2019. Store shelves have often been as bare of flour as of toilet paper, though only about a quarter of sales has been attributed to stockpiling, Tine said.

While some stores struggle to keep flour in stock, Tine stressed that there is no shortage of flour. Any delays have more to do with packaging capacity, he said. The same is true for yeast, which also has been selling out, even at King Arthur's store and website.

King Arthur has managed its increase in sales while retooling. The company added shifts and changed its workstations to accommodate social distancing requirements. It moved some shipments from rail to truck freight, which is more flexible. And it expanded the capacity of its recently redeveloped website to handle more orders.

In addition, the closure of the company's baking schools in Norwich and near Seattle meant it moved baking instructors into social media roles and to help with calls to the company's baker's hotline. King Arthur is posting videos to social media and seeing huge volumes of calls and written inquiries.

"If you're just starting to get into sourdough baking, you have a lot of questions," Tine said.

Indeed, bread, and sourdough in particular, are leading the baking boom. Because it relies on a well-tended starter, rather than commercial yeast, for fermentation, sourdough is something many bakers want to try, but don't feel they have the time. It's also a more self-sustaining way to make bread.

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