Focus Live: 89 new coronavirus cases, 13 are in hospital, 92 have recovered, 797 in total
There are 89 new cases of coronavirus in New Zealand - the most recorded in a single day so far, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says. ...
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There are 89 new cases of coronavirus in New Zealand - the most recorded in a single day so far, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says.
NOW PLAYING • Focus Live: 89 new coronavirus cases, 13 are in hospital, 92 have recovered, 797 in total
There are 89 new cases of coronavirus in New Zealand - the most recorded in a single day so far, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says. ...
Flour mills around the country are working 24 hours a day to get product onto supermarket shelves.
And while the supply of flour is plentiful, it's getting it to consumers that's proving tricky.
Many Kiwis have been posting their frustration and bewilderment about the lack of flour as they reignite the cooking days of old.
Uber Eats and McDonald's have been taken away, so many parents are dragging their children to the stove top to see what they can create together.
Despite stresses that the country had run out of flour, it's not. It's produced at four different mills around New Zealand, all of which have ramped up production to meet the insatiable demand.
New Zealand Flour Mills Association executive director Niki Urwin told the Herald the country won't run out of flour, but each of the respective mills was having some teething issues getting it to people.
Whether that was the shortage of trucking companies available to transport it, or the packaging of it into smaller 1.5kg quantities.
"The supermarkets are working with the flour mills ... it shouldn't be far away, you should start to see saturation through the market place this week."
As for Kiwis getting back in the kitchen themselves, he said it was heartening to see families getting creative again.
"It's really good that New Zealanders, to fill in their time, are encouraged to want to bake and try to bake.
"My wife and I, we tried to make scones in a fry pan yesterday, that's something we're doing with our kids. "
With the yeast shortage, people were also experimenting with replacements.
"I think the creativity and the fact of getting back in and working from base products and creating your own, i think that's a good thing .. it's better than being on a device and teaching a younger generation great life skills.
Farmers Mill flour in Timaru general manager Mark Lawrence said his 25-strong staff had gone from producing flour 16 hours a day, to now 24 hours a day.
His company had primarily supplied commercial suppliers and Foodstuffs in-store bakeries.
However, given the current situation, his team had packed up all of its 5kg stock off to supermarkets.
"In the past month we would have sold the equivalent of what we would have sold in the last four years.
"So it ran us out of packaging and put pressure on the packaging supplier in Auckland but they have since come to the party and they're getting us some new bags down next week."
It would then take a few days to get the flour in the 5kg bags and out for delivery.
"We're very lucky with our workforce down here everybody is on deck and happy to work extra hours to get the flour out the door which is great."
As well as 5kg bags, they'd churned out a monstrous amount of their 20kg bags to various supermarkets.
"We've just dispatched 50 pellets, or 50 tonne, of 10kg retail flour in the last two days and that's all heading to the North Island as well.
"We had a call from Foodstuffs North Island asking if we could help, so yeah, the guys down here dug it in and worked 24 hours a day to turn it around."
His team were under pressure and he hoped that Kiwis appreciated the effort they were putting in.
"I think what's important is that people understand the pressure that our staff are under as well. It is pretty tough for people to be stuck at home but it's also pretty tough for these guys to come out of their bubble and have to come to work.
"They've been fantastic and they're doing whatever they can because the demand is nothing that we've ever seen in the industry before.
"At the back of it if people learn to bake at home then that's a fantastic result, really.
"We might then have to sell more retail flour than concentrating on manufacturing."
Antoinette Laird, head of corporate affairs, Foodstuffs NZ said baking products in general had been snapped up by consumers as they prepared for four weeks of lockdown, giving them time to create their best and brightest baking sensations.
"Flour and yeast were both purchased in much higher volumes than normal so suppliers have been playing a bit of catch up.
"Our suggestion is customers focus on working through the baking items they have in their cupboards and give the supply chain a bit of a chance to get back up to normal levels."
