Should You Switch Your Flour? What Operators Are Actually Doing

The flour debate is here. New York just moved on potassium bromate. California already did it. And if you run a pizzeria, it's coming for you whether you're in those states or not.

On this Takeout Tips Thursday solo episode, Tyrell Reed breaks down the bleached and bromated flour conversation from an operator's perspective. No science degree required. Just real talk about what this means inside your kitchen, your dough, your food cost, and your brand.

Tyrell shares what he learned running 700+ bags of Caputo unbleached flour three years ago, why cost and consistency stopped him from switching then, and what he's doing now as the pressure builds in every corner of the industry.

This episode covers: what potassium bromate does and why shops depend on it, the case for switching and the case for staying put, the three paths available to every operator right now, and the questions you must answer before you make any move

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's going on, Pizza Fan? Welcome back to another episode of the Pizza King podcast. I'm your host, Tyrell Reed, and today's Thursday, so you already know what that means. We're doing takeout tips. Uh really wanted to kind of get a little bit deeper into what's what's been happening in the news recently versus doing a store update this week. So unless you've been under a rock in the pizza game, you've been hearing all the noise about flour, right? About flour. Not about marketing, not about trends around flour, but around regulation around flour. New York just pushed a bill that targets potassium bromade using flour. Other states are already starting to move. California did it a couple of years ago. Big brands are really starting to adjust. And now operators are split right down the middle on this thing. Like it's it's pizza wars all over again. Some folks are saying that nothing changes. The dough still works. Like we don't need to do anything. My customers are happy. Let's just keep it moving. But other folks are coming in and saying, whether you like it or not, cleaner labels, future proof in your business is what you need to be doing. You know what I mean? Get ahead of it now. That's what people are saying. Get ahead of it now. So what do you do if you're running a shop like me with real pressure, real bills, your labor is tight, the margins are even tighter, and consistency matters more than anything every single day. Do you, you know, stick with what works in your shop or do you make the move before you're forced to do it in your state? Today we're not talking about theory. We're talking about what operators like you, like me, like a lot of folks that listen to this podcast are actually thinking. What does this mean inside my kitchen? What does this really mean? And what decision, you know, are you going to make without blowing up your whole operation? So let's get into it. I mean, I think right from the beginning, the first thing we got to understand is that this isn't a trend, right? This isn't just some fad. This is regulation that's coming likely for us all. We've already seen early adopters in the US and in California and New York. We're seeing a lot of, a lot of shops and a lot of a lot of operators voluntarily make the switch just because the research the research, you know, is there. And you can go do your own research. Get on Google. You can learn all of the all of the facts behind, you know, potassium bromade and you know using bleach flowers and what what that does. But it's not it's not a trend. Like soon, so more shops will not have a choice. And a lot of folks have already made the switch. The question I want to ask is, are you are you waiting on that to happen to you? Or are you gonna get out in front of it? You know what I mean? And what we're doing and what I'm what I'm doing, and not that this is even a new thing, and we can we can go back. We I started testing with, you know, unbleached and uh non-bromated flour, unbleached unbromated flour three years ago. We didn't ultimately make the switch back then, but uh I probably ran through at least about seven, eight hundred bags, bags of flour from Caputo three, you know, three years back in 2023. We wanted to, at that point, we wanted to understand what that meant for our operation. Could we adjust our recipe? We saw that the legislation was coming, you know, was was happening in California at that time and all over Europe, and we wanted to, we wanted to be in front of it. We didn't ultimately switch then. It didn't look like anything was gonna happen on our front. We stayed put where we were with using using our own in-house, our own house flower brand, but we wanted to understand what the implications were operationally. So working with it, understood that, understood that part of it. Cost was a major factor. Not even gonna lie, cost was a major factor that prevented us from making that jump then because we were looking at essentially doubling the cost of our flour at that point. We weren't ready to make that switch. So I think that, you know, and instill puts me along the lines of trying to get out in front of it before this is something that is forced upon us from a from a regulation standpoint. Do I know which which brand I'm gonna use? Or no, I'm I'm not. But what I'm doing is having conversations. I'm having conversations with other operators about what what they're using, what they're seeing, how they're making adjustments. I'm having conversations with with you know our distributors and and you know, the buyers and you know, the folks from the purchasing department at PFG on what they can bring in, what they're what they currently offer and and how that works, how that can work for us. There's a there's a I'll say this. There are no shortage of options when it comes to finding a flower that can work for whatever style of pizza you're using, whatever style of pizza you're selling. If you're anything like me, then you're probably thinking, I don't even know what what these flowers do. What what does what does potassium bromate? What doesn't all flour have bleach in it? Like I'm I'm not a scientist, I'm not, you know, I'm a I'm a pizza guy. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I don't even really fully understand it well enough to to say whether or not it's this or it's that, but you can do some research and and educate yourself. I think at a at a very, well not I think I I can tell you that at a very high level, just from what I've been able to to find and and research and learn on my own and and learn through conversations is that what flour that has potassium bromade does is it makes a stronger dough, stronger, more gluten structure, stronger dough, more oven spring, more consistency, you know, batch to batch. It really helps support the dough making process. And and people are using it because it's much easier to manage. It's way more forgiving when we're talking about scaling and dealing with the staff and training, and it really helps high-volume shops stay consistent. But that being said, there's an undeniable wave of folks that are moving away from it. And not just because of what we're seeing around the world, but in the United States. People are leaving and moving away from it because one, it is, it has been linked to cancer concerns in lots of studies. It is for a fact banned in in Europe and in, you know, lots of parts of Europe and even other regions in the United States, California, New York today, too. There is a lot of pressure on the retail side to make the switch. And, you know, there is legislation that is building. Obviously, we're seeing that. And it's causing a lot, it's causing a lot of stir. The reality is, one, it's still it is still legal in the United States right now. Still legal right now. Does not mean it's gonna stay that way. The momentum is shifting state by state. So look at where you are, look at what's happening around you, and understand that change is most likely coming. But there's still gonna be two sides of this thing. You know, this is this is just part of part of how this this discussion and this and this this conversation has been going. There's there's side A that says, look, my dough works the way that it is. My customers are happy. We haven't this, we've done it this way for a hundred years. I care about being consistent. If we if we switch products, then I'm gonna risk, you know, changing the quality of of what I've been doing or the recipe and the structure of what I've been doing. My my margins are already tight. I can't afford to to add that much cost to our to our one of our major products, which is probably our our most used product is flour, right? But then there's there's the other side that's saying, look, you gotta serve your customers better stuff. You gotta, you have to be more conscious about that. You would be smart to get out in front of this, right? That's what they're saying. You'd be smart to get out in front of this before you're forced to do it and your options become more limited. You know, it gives you something better to uh, you know, a better discussion, a better product, a better, a better way to, you know, to serve your guests, right? And some people are saying that there is better flavor because there's just less chemical, you know, more natural, more, you know, more attention to the process, which brings out more of that artist and that artist and flavor, that artist and style. And there's and there's something to be said for that, right? We're obviously charging more money because things cost us more. So maybe we should maybe we should be given a better product. A lot of folks are saying that. What does that what does that mean for you? I I think you gotta tell your own story, right? You gotta still do what works for you and for your operation, right? If you're you're moving a lot of pies, your volume is very high, maybe you don't have the time or the space or the structure to completely re you know, rehash your dough process, your process or you know, reinvent your dough process. And and I totally understand that. Maybe there's there's some there's a solution for you at that point. If you're a smaller shop and you're you're leaning in towards, you know, we're we're providing the best ingredients, the highest quality, and and you know, I think that absolutely has to be part of your story, right? And you know, who gets stuck in the middle are a lot of the independent operators who are you know trying to you know mimic what how the big players and the big chains operate because it has been proven to be, you know, profitable, but still trying to maintain that that high quality, that that that individualized service that you know that makes it you know worth shopping at an independent, right? Um those are those are just you know some of the questions that you that you have to ask. Like, is is is your dough gonna change? You know, what is your staff gonna struggle with with producing this kind of a product? Will your food costs go up? How much will your food costs go up? Will the customers notice? Does does anybody even care? Do your customers care? And that's and that's really where I land on this thing. Is I am on the side of seeing that it is coming, right? It's happening. I'm in Florida, I'm not in New York or California, so I'm not forced to at this point, but understanding that I can see the shift. You see the the conversations online, I'm in groups, I'm in, you know, I'm you know, I read a lot of you know content around the industry. There's there's there want to be more conversations. And right now, most of those conversations are, you know, internal, meaning inside the industry, but customers are gonna start to ask questions and demand it. We see a lot of you know, pizza influencers and enthusiasts who are, you know, even highlighting the fact that shops are using this certain products over this product. Oh, they're using or grande cheese and they're using Caputo flour, they're using King Arthur flour. So these these brands and these, you know, these these products are starting to become part of the experience for customers. So my question, what do you do if your customers start demanding it? Do you make the change? I think you almost have to at that point, right? You should at least have an answer for them. What if they ask and you know nothing about it or you don't have a plan, I think it, you know, you know, shame on us as operators if we don't know what we're gonna do if we're don't, if we don't have a plan for how we're gonna move through that and move forward, right? That's that's what I say. So before your customers start to ask for it, and before your staff starts to look at it and say, what do we serve? Think about which, you know, how you want to answer those questions and and then act on it. Maybe you're in a situation where you're like, look, I'm not, law's not changing here for a while, we don't need to do it, our customers aren't asking, that's great. Stay there. But if you're if you're if the pressure's building, you may want to start thinking about it. You know what I mean? Ask yourself, do you sell on quality or do you sell on convenience? You can you can your current process handle a flower that's less forgiving, that takes a little bit more time to ferment, that needs more care and more attention? Can you handle that process? Well, ultimately you got to ask yourself, are you what what type of brand are you building? Are you are you building something that is is set on on doing things at a certain standard, at a certain, you know, a certain level of quality? Are you trying to are you trying to make as much money as possible? All fine, however you want to do it. I'm trying to make some money. Totally understand that. You you have to make sure that you can answer those questions and then move a quarter. I I think there's really, you know, three different paths that you can take at this point. I think the first path is you just stay put. Keep doing what you're doing, watch the laws, understand what's happening, focus on still providing the best, the best possible product you can where you are. I think path two, which is where I am and where I'm going, is you sit back, you watch, but you test and you test behind the scenes quietly. You run side-by-side dough tests. You compare texture and and you know, the rise of the dough and how you're handling it, and then you start to slowly implement. Or you can take the take the all-in approach and just switch. Find your find your flower, you know, update your story. Tell people what you're doing, you know, talk about it on your on your page, you know, capture the momentum that is behind this move right now. And then the the most important thing you can do is talk to people, talk to other operators. I see all the back and forth, and I'm not, and I'm not one for conflict, especially around this. These things should be collaborative. We should be learning, growing, understanding, and developing together because these laws and the regulations and all these things that change, they affect us all. So how do how do we how do we move accordingly? And that's kind of where we're I land on that thing. Here's the truth though. Most customers at this point are not asking about, you know, is your flour bleached or bromated? They're not doing that today. But that can change quick once the news starts to hit or the media catches on. So this comes down to how you run your shop. If your system is built on consistency and on speed, you need to be honest about what will change if you have to change your process. If your brand is built on quality, you know, quality service, quality ingredients, you need to be honest about whether your product matches that story. You know what I mean? Like, are you are you selling with what you say you're selling? Um, there's no perfect answer for any of this. There's only your answer. It's your shop. You have to run it your way for your customers. You can stay where you are, but make sure that you're paying attention. You can start testing. You can get better without your customers even noticing, too. You can you can start to work behind the scenes in some small batches. Or you can go all in, you know, build your build your product and your story around making that change and and and doing that, making that move. But doing nothing and not thinking about it, that's the worst thing you can do. That's the only bad move in this whole situation. And, you know, I I really want to hear from you guys. What what flowers are you using right now? I have you started testing. Are you working on switching? You know, what actually happened in your in your dough? Let's have those conversations. Send me a message, shoot me a DM, send me an email, info at Tyrrell Reed.com. Um talk about come join us on the school group. Let's talk about it. I'll start a little thread and we can have that discussion on on in in the private group. So let's just get some real data. Let's get some real conversations from operators who are interested in moving it forward and and doing what's right for their customers. I'll actually see you guys next week. Peace.