A retailer’s guide to flours and pulses

While fine food favourite like cheese, charcuterie and flavoursome, provenance-rich sauces will always be popular at fine food establishments, smart buyers are stocking up on high quality staples such as flour and pulses – and exciting adventurous shoppers as they do so.

Gone are the days of customers choosing between white and wholemeal flour for their baking, or tinned chickpeas or kidney beans for their cooking; in 2025, there’s a raft of high quality, taste-packed, hugely versatile and eye-catching products on the market to delight both retailers and fine food shoppers.

The increasing appetite for international cuisine, as well as the hunger for simple pleasures such as home baking, have meant that British consumers are on the hunt for new takes on their store cupboard stalwarts – and Speciality Food retailers are in prime position to benefit. By seeking out products with clear markers of quality such as provenance, and sharing inspiration for how to utilise these ingredients – think salads and stews bolstered by rich jarred butter beans, and gut-friendly sourdough loaves laced with rye and seeds – retailers are onto a winner.

“Shoppers are looking for alternatives for either a healthier version of something or a more flavourful version of something, plus culinary adventure,” says Monika Linton, founder of Brindisa. The thousands – if not more – of recipes available on social media and the wider internet are no doubt inspiring this hunt for better. “With the access of more info online, people want to experiment and learn,” she says.

The rise of quality flour

While classic white bread flour seemed a major winner of 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic inspiring consumers across the board to dip their fingers into home baking, today’s fine food shopper is looking for something a little more flavourful and adventurous.
Options abound, from flours made from ancient grains to trending rye and seed-studded mixes, but ultimately it all comes down to the end result; a good, reliable rise underpins what bakers are looking for right now.

For Bertie Matthews, MD of Matthews Cotswold Flour, consistency is key to ensuring the rise of quality flours – and bakes. “Consumers are very interested in quality and consistency,” he begins, “and having great flour will make your baking results better in every conceivable way – from taste to nutrition and everything in between. Consistency is a great driver too – making sure that your ingredients produce repeatable results has always been vital for professional bakers but, as more people start baking at home, consistency has become a more important factor for everyone.”

Stocking up on a cheap supermarket white flour might seem the natural first step for many shoppers, but by inspiring them to buy better you are strengthening the case for repeat business. Bonus points if you can inspire them with simple recipes, then offer them the opportunity to level up and experiment with more adventurous bakes based around great quality flour.

“Quality makes a huge difference – the results you can achieve at home with just a little knowledge and some great ingredients will always impress and can make a huge difference to the way you approach food in general,” explains Bertie. “The benefits of knowing exactly what’s in the food you’re eating, not to mention serving to your friends and family, are many.”

Thankfully, Matthews is available to support retailers keen to up their flour game. “We’re always looking for new and engaging ways that we can collaborate with retailers to help inspire home bakers everywhere. We work with our online baking community, collaborating with content creators to develop new recipes, sharing innovative baking tips and techniques as widely as we can!”

Provenance, a key point of difference for fine food retailers and their customers, also plays a role here. “We also work with our suppliers and retailers to help tell the full story of our food, from farm (to mill, to shop) to fork, with special focus on the sustainability benefits of Organic and Regenerative farming models where relevant,” says Bertie. “Movements like the Real Bread Campaign are also a great resource for building awareness, and we work with UK Flour Millers on industry wide initiatives at every opportunity.”

Bread-making offers the most valuable opportunity for Speciality Food readers, says Bertie. “We have the largest range of speciality flour in the UK, and it is continuing to grow – with brand new regenerative lines coming (very) soon! Bread flour represents our strongest selling product group as a whole, with eight out of ten of our top selling flours being best for baking bread and rolls. Our best-selling flour is Cotswold Crunch, closely followed by Eight Grain in second place, and our premium Strong Bread Flours are always tied for a very close joint third (Strong White, Churchill, Canadian Great White, Strong Wholegrain and Organic Strong White).

“We think this reflects the fact that more and more people are baking bread at home, with the rise in bread maker technology (both in terms of improving results and wider availability), as well as the growing interest in sourdough baking in recent years.”

It’s time to consider stocking organic

Organic products are also a valuable option for discerning retailers and customers. “With health and sustainability continuing to be key drivers for consumer purchase, organic flour with its ‘better for me and the planet’ proposition is leading the way in meeting this demand, says Clare Marriage, founder of Doves Farm. “Whilst there has been an emergence of brands making green claims, organic is recognised as the authentically (and only legally defined) sustainable option in the market: shoppers realise that buying organic has a positive outcome for nature, soil and the health of our planet with proven benefits, whilst also enabling them to reduce their own exposure to a potential cocktail of chemicals.”

The hot topic of ultra-processed foods feeds into this, too. “The ongoing conversation surrounding UPFs is also fuelling a trend towards cooking and baking from scratch,” says Clare. “Consumers are becoming more aware of product ingredients, their overall nutrition and how they are made, which again plays in organic flour’s favour, as it is always made with fully traceable ingredients grown to the toughest and independently verified, organic standards and with no artificial additives, pesticides and fertilisers. 

Next-gen pulses

Far from supermarket scenes of row upon row of tinned pulses, fine food independents can offer pulses in an appetising cornucopia of jars and rustic bags to bring them into the foodie gifting market as well as store cupboard stockers. Alongside this attractive new appearance, the flavours showcased by high quality products is better than ever before and opening shoppers up to their culinary potential.
“I think the shopper got used to quite one-dimensional flavours and now sees that these foods, if selected well, contribute to the flavour of a dish in their own right,” explains Monika. “They are food and gastronomy in one.”

Monika’s tips for stocking pulses in 2025 include:

1. Lentils are the most popular because they are easy to cook from dry (no soaking needed and cooking time quite short) and have been around for years at a level of quality that is very respectable thanks to the Puy variety from France. They are also super full of iron so very healthy. Pre-cooked lentils have added convenience.

2. Chickpeas would be the biggest seller of all thanks to the Eastern Mediterranean influences and humous that has taken over every party in town.

3. White beans of varying shapes and sizes come next, with the plump Spanish Judion butter bean being quite a revolutionary item. This was the bean that blew our chefs’ minds in the 90s - a butter bean that was 3cm long by 1cm by 1cm plump. Despite the high price they attract, they never stop selling, but they have to be good.