I pulled a report from Statista.com, a commercial statistics aggregation site, and estimated shows that 181 million people in the US consume at least one loaf of bread per week, with over 100 million consuming 2 or more. What is crazy to me, is the average price of bread. TheDailyMeal.com listed that the average price of bread in 2020 rose to $2.07. So let’s do some math: If each American had a loaf of bread every week, which is not unrealistic given that many families consume 2 or more per week, 331.42 million Americans consume an estimated $35,672,000,000 per year in bread. That’s about $107 of bread per person, per year! Now I may be doing my math wrong, but that seems to be a fairly reasonable and accurate estimate. I’d say about $100 per year of bread for myself is very reasonable, we tend to buy multigrain seeded bread which means it’s likely more. With three million people now living in Utah, if my estimation holds, that means the market size is around $312,000,000 for bread. Now that’s just an estimate! It’s not really meant to be authoritative so think of it as just having fun with statistics. But, it does bring up an interesting point about the hidden size of the bread market. I looked it up just for fun, and the grocery market is over $6 trillion in size, which really does hold up in size to my estimate, just showing how massive this industry is. Did you know, that some breadmakers manufacture their lousy bread for $.08 per loaf? That same loaf you are paying $2.00 in the store right now! If you don’t feel a little ashamed of your bread choices after hearing that, I would be right with you. It doesn’t seem like there are many trustworthy alternatives. If that isn’t enough to put you over the edge, here’s the real kicker: some bread manufacturers use sawdust as their fiber. You know, ‘cellulose?’ It’s just regular ‘food-grade sawdust. Now you better start squirming in your chair because you’ve definitely had a loaf of wood-bread in your life. It doesn’t even stop there, however; because those bread loaves which you eat in the store that last forever, and don’t expire, they’re treated with toxic chemicals that literally kill the living bacteria in your bread which forces it to stay ‘safe’. Unfortunately, the one who really pays the price is you, the reader, who until this moment may have been totally unaware that the reason your bread goes bad is also the reason it’s so good for you. Get all the details for this, and more in this week’s podcast episode with Rob Thomas, owner of Granny’s Delight Bread. Questions from the Interview: I did a little research on your website, and it states that you began working in the grocer distribution industry in 1984 doing sales, is that right? When did you transition into baking and food manufacturing? Did the relationships you built while in sales make it easy to start distributing your own product? What is your point of view on student debt? Long-Form Question: The current American student loan debt is in a crisis, with a total of $1.57 trillion of unpaid schooling debt as of 2020. I recently listened to an address made by Mike Rowe to the House about the trades, and something he said was so powerful that I wanted to share it with you, and see what you thought about it. “We continue to lend money we don’t have, to kids who can’t pay it back, to teach them jobs that no longer exist, while ignoring all kinds of careers that actually do.” How do you feel about this?
