WSJ: French Flour Better?

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U.S. bakers are discovering a new trick for crusty baguettes, flaky croissants and airy loaves of bread: an ingredient produced thousands of miles away.

Hobby bakers are skipping their local grocery store and tracking down flour made in France at bakeries and online retailers. Many say the imported flour doesn’t trigger their sensitivity to gluten like domestic flour does. Others tout a superior product. ...

Armin Alaedini is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University who researches gluten sensitivity. He says he has anecdotally heard of travelers to Germany, Pakistan and Switzerland having less sensitivity to gluten when eating local breads.

The flour in the U.S. differs slightly on a molecular level, but research on the topic is scant partly because “it’s difficult to pinpoint that the symptoms that you have or didn’t have are because of a single thing you did or did not eat,” he says....

Bakeries and online stores offer various types of French flour. Georges Kande, a logistics executive based in Doral, Fla., started selling imported flour online three years ago. He now sells more than a dozen varieties from Foricher Les Moulins and has about a thousand customers, he says.

When Kneady Bakery in Los Angeles opened in October, customers started asking to purchase the same made-in-France flour that the bakery uses for its creations, co-founder Barbara Cannamela says.

“They say they see a difference,” says Cannamela, who co-owns another bakery in the Provence region of France. The Los Angles store delivers five flour varieties in the area, including a 2.2-pound bag of French bread flour for $9. A 2-pound bag of all-purpose flour can cost less than $2 at a U.S. grocery store.

Myles Andrews, a Los Angeles-based healthcare executive, says he recently started ordering flour from Kneady Bakery after a different French flour source started charging hefty shipping fees. The cost is comparable to what’s available at a nearby Whole Foods. But he says the French flour he uses for his children’s birthday cakes, holiday cookies and Irish soda bread tastes better.

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