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How Much Does it Cost to Make Bread? — 32 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Our family refuses to pay so much for store bought breads.
    I, at times, have 2 Zo’s going at once.
    When the loaves are cool, we slice the whole loaf and put it in the freezer. It only takes 2 minutes for the pieces to thaw and they stay nice and soft this way.

  2. 5 stars
    I really appreciate this both current and historical information. I took buy in bulk whenever I can.
    My family has loved every recipe of yours that I try. Most recently the No-Fail recipe because of the extreme weather we’ve had on the northern plains.

  3. My bread uses bread flour from Costco or Sams in 25lb sacks which is a lot cheaper than grocery store bread flour. don’t use milk, just 320ml water, 1 lb 3 oz flour, no oil and 1 tsp salt and 1 TBSP sugar, then about 1 1/2 tsp yeast. We get a decent tasting loaf of bread for less than 50c, which is great as my husband eats it as fast as I can bake it…which is also why I leave out the milk and oil. Milk and oil help to keep the bread soft for slightly longer, but as a loaf only lasts 2 days in my house, we don’t need it 🙂

  4. Marsha, I think your sour milk bread recipe is my new go-to white bread recipe. I also made the orange white bread (basically the same recipe with orange zest) and my hubby loved it. Such a refreshing flavor.

    I sent you an email recently asking about buying used Zos on EBay. I have had Zo Envy for years and have held back but finally bit the bullet. I finally did it and bought a used Virtuoso Plus. I am so excited and think I will try an Artisan bread first. Or maybe another Orange bread! Hopefully I got a good one and not someone’s lemon.

    Keep those tips and recipes coming!

  5. Thank you! I buy bulk ingredients and have known that bread from my machine is less expensive than hearty, good bread from a store and tastes so much better. It’s nice to have a confirmation and real cents – no dollars. I make 1-2 loafs per week now as it’s just my husband and I. When my children where growing up it was a loaf a day! Both of my son’s have bread machines and make their own bread.
    I love your email and site.

  6. When I buy flour at the local Fred Meyer, a 25 lb. bag is $6.99, and on first Tuesday, I get an additional 20% off, making the flour 22.368¢ per pound, which is the cheapest that I’ve found so far, and at 12% protein, makes pretty darn good bread. Also, I buy buttermilk (Umpqua dairy) at Grocery Outlet, it’s always $1.49 a quart, which is 37.25¢ a cup. Also, Dollar Tree has Pink Himalayan sea salt for $1, and that translates to 0.0078¢ a tsp. White table sugar is $3.98 a 10 lb bag, which is 39.8¢ a pound, and that works out to about 1.098¢ a Tbsp. EVOO is what I use, and it costs 13.46¢ an ounce or 6.73¢ a Tbsp, when purchasing a 101 oz bottle. Eggs are $5.24 for 5 dozen, which works out to 8.74¢ an egg. So my cost per loaf is about 76.1958¢ per loaf. Safe, and hoppy baking from the Boondocking Baker™!

  7. The cost is a factor but the one thing I love the most about making my own bread, is that I can eliminate the salt. Most of my recipes I have made turn out fantastic without any salt at all, and some recipes where I need a wee bit of salt I use so little and they still come out great. Using little or no salt means using less yeast as well so not only am I saving there but having no salt bread is really important when you are trying to bring down high blood pressure. I got the breadmaker for my birthday and have been enjoying it ever since. I especially love that it only takes 3 minutes to make bread, then I come back when it’s all done and yummy, yummy!!

  8. My take on the maths:

    I know it’s less expensive than store bought bread, just doing some “mental math” in my head. Also, some of us devoted to bread machines may not have noticed but the prices of store bought bread have gone up a LOT since this analysis was done in 2017. The one that bugged my eyes out was a recent circular here that had a “bakery” carmelized onion bread… at $6.99 a loaf!!! It’s a mainstay favorite here and my brain ciphering says it costs about $1.75 when I make a 2 pound loaf.

    One basic number to consider is the cost of flour. There are 16 cups in a 5 pound bag of bread flour – enough for four 2 pound loaves of basic white bread. In these parts a 5 pound bag of quality bread flour typically sells today for $4.99 – or $1.25 per loaf. (I wish we had an option to buy bread flour in bulk, but we don’t.)

    The rest of the ingredients are pretty inconsequential: couple tablespoons of butter or oil, couple tablespoons of sugar, yeast of course, some salt… All of those other ingredients except the yeast are household staples for us to begin with. In other words I’m not going out of my way to purchase anything but the bread flour and yeast to put a basic loaf on the table. So… I’ve added, at most, maybe $1.35 per 2 pound loaf to my regular shopping costs to make bread at home.

    And it’s a lot less than that when Bob’s Red Mill bread flour goes on sale at 30% off! A fortunate and frequent occurrence for us.

    You can’t get a loaf of commercial mass produced store brand bread for less than $2.00 today, at least not around here. Branded stuff like P. Farm “farmhouse” breads are $4.99 when not on sale!

  9. Ive used several kinds of flour, excluding bleached and self rising.
    This means I did the unthinkable and actually used the dreaded all-purpose.
    I have an “all purpose” loaf going right now, in fact.
    The other ingredients I use are simple and common – powdered milk, on-sale sea salt, any old sugar, margarine or butter.
    Pretty much whatever we have, and nothing really “selective.”

    I just tell people I get a decent loaf of “pedestrian bread” for a buck,

  10. My Oster bread machine uses 650 watts (probably peak power). My local electric rate is 8.14 cents per kilowatt-hour (1,000 watts for one hour). My usual bread cycle runs 3 hours & 25 minutes. (For comparison, Pacific Gas & Electric in California current electric rates range from baseline rates of 12 cents to as high as 33 cents per kWh during summer peak demand hours.)

    So, the equation is 3.42 hours X 650 watts = 2.2 kWh electric use per loaf
    and 2.2 kWh x $0.814 = ~$0.18 per loaf.

    Even at PG&E’s peak summer rates during hot summer afternoons ($0.33/kWh), the cost of a running my machine for one cycle (one loaf) only comes to ~$0.72.

    Note: I don’t believe that the machine is using the full 650 watts at all times during the cycle, which reduces the total electric cost.

  11. I was just going to do a cost analysis and thought….google! So glad I did because I found this website. This helps because I now have neighbors that want to bread from me. I had no idea what to charge.
    Thank you for your information. Tracy

  12. I’ve been able to cut cost measuring to the exact count .
    Encluding cost of baking products and cost of electricity comes out to $ 1.25 a loaf , make 2 loaves and sell 1 for $ 2.50 = no cost for your loaf of bread !

  13. When I priced items at my local market a couple weeks ago:

    5 LB bread flour, any make was 4.99

    1/2 gallon soy milk was 2.99

    I use Himalayan salt so it’s not cheap at 7.99 a jar for 17 oz.
    I’ve seen smaller jars but did not catch the price.

    Sugar I buy by the 2lb box as I ONLY use it in bread when I don’t have honey. 2lb runs 4.99. Honey runs 5.00 per 1 lb jar depending on the place I buy it.

    Oil. I use Olive Oil exclusively and we all know how high that’s getting! I just bought 120 fluid oz for just over $20 – that’s the every day virgin oil. The specialty oil – California Arbequina extra virgin runs $10 plus for 16.9 oz and it my go to for bread.

    Yeast KAF’s SAF yeast, is 5.95 a lb. I know it costs shipping but it’s never a single item purchase so works out.

    Now I know the price point is way different than what you posted BUT no matter how I slice it (laughs) the price per loaf is WAY lower especially when considering the satisfaction of a home made loaf vs the near emptiness of a store bought (and I might add flavorless to my mind [and tongue]) loaf – even the so-called artisan breads.

    I firmly believe home made, whether by hand or machine, is not only more economical, it is more nutricious and tasty than store bought. (Now, don’t get me started on home made soups and broths or we’ll be here all day 🙂 )

      • Kim, I’ve added your input into the article. Thanks so much for your comments, encouragement and contributions. This blog is better because of you!

    • 4 stars
      I buy my pink Himalayan sea salt at the dollar tree store. Yup, a pound of excellent pink Himalayan sea salt for a buck a pound! Why buy anywhere else? Share, and enjoy!

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