Milling & Baking News - December 4, 2007 - 1

THE NEWS WEEKLY OF GRAIN-BASED FOODS
DECEMBER 4, 2007

bakingbusiness.com / foodbusinessnews.net

Dryness across southern Plains
generates early worries for 2008

Another new mill
for Mennel
Company completes second
'greenfield' project in two years
with the opening of a 10,000-cwt
milling facility in Roanoke, Va.
Story on Page 23

LATE NEWS

Grains remain 'hot'
items on menus
WASHINGTON - While bite-size
desserts topped the list when it comes
to favorite restaurant menu courses,
several grain-based foods items also
found favor in the "What's Hot &
What's Not 2007 Chef Survey." The
Internet survey of 1,282 members
of the American Culinary Federation was conducted in October and
asked chefs to rate items as "hot,"
"cool/passé," or "perennial favorite." Eighty-three per cent of respondents ranked bite-size desserts as
hot, followed by locally-grown produce (81%), organic produce (75%),
small plates/tapas/mezze (73%) and
Continued on Page 10

KANSAS CITY - New crop Kansas City wheat crop generally was in excellent
wheat futures priced near $7.50 a bu and shape with the approach of winter,
setting new contract highs last week the hard winter wheat crop was strugreflected
market
worries over deFading hopes for relief
clining crop con(Kansas City wheat futures March 2008 versus July 2008)
ditions across the
$9.50
hard winter wheat
March
belt. Extreme dryJuly
ness in some key
$8.50
producing areas in
the southern Plains
$7.50
raised
concerns
over 2008 produc$6.50
tion at a time when
Oct.
Nov.
the U.S. all-wheat
Recent strength in 2008 crop contracts has frustrated
2007
ending stocks for
baker hopes for price relief in the new crop year.
2007-08 were projected to be the lowest since 1949 and gling, particularly in Texas and Oklaworld wheat stocks were the tightest in homa but also in western Kansas and
decades.
western Nebraska.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
The Texas crop was rated 53% poor to
on Nov. 26 issued its final compos- very poor, 36% fair and only 11% good
ite winter wheat condition ratings of at the end of November. The rating was
the season. While the soft red winter
Continued on Page 13
per bu

FEATURE

Climbing the charts

Brand building, unique products spur cracker category growth
At $3.5 billion in total dollar sales, the
U.S. cracker industry is slightly larger
than the cookie category and about half
the size of the ready-to-eat cereal segment. But measured by sales growth
over the past year, crackers clearly are
a cut above.
According to Information Resources,
Inc., Chicago, dollar sales of crackers
in the 52 weeks ended Sept. 9 totaled
$3,517,156,000, up 2.5% from the same
period a year earlier. This compared

with year-over-year dollar sales growth
of 0.2% for R.-T.-E. cereal and a decline
of 0.5% for cookies. Crackers also sustained the smallest year-over-year decline in unit sales among the big three
grain-based foods categories, easing
0.4%, which compared with declines
of 0.9% and 3.4% in R.-T.-E. cereal and
cookies, respectively.
Category leader Kraft Foods Inc.,
Northfield, Ill., suffered a slight setback
in dollar sales during the period, falling 0.4% to $1,634,518,000. But certain
products performed well enough to give
Kraft optimism going forward. Revenue
growth of Nabisco 100-calorie packs
was 51% in the third quarter, while
the company's toasted chips platform
grew 18%, said Tim McLevish, executive vice-president and chief financial
Continued on Page 31

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Milling & Baking News - December 4, 2007

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