Baking spans home preparation, purchased bakery products, commercial production, and the wheat and flour supply chain. These U.S. statistics therefore measure different populations and outcomes: flour use, prices, spending, establishments, employment, sales, and production shares are not interchangeable with baking frequency.
Key Baking Statistics
The most useful headline measures are:
- In 2025, 126.6 pounds of wheat flour per person were estimated for U.S. flour use; this is a disappearance/use estimate, not home-baking participation.
- In 1972, U.S. per-capita wheat consumption reached 110 pounds.
- From January 2021 through December 2023, bakery-product producer prices increased in 35 of 36 months in the United States.
- From May 2022 to December 2023, U.S. bakery-product producer prices increased 10.5%.
- From May 2022 to December 2023, bakery-product consumer prices increased 12.2% for U.S. urban consumers.
- From 2020 to 2022, average annual purchased bakery-product expenditures increased 16.1% for U.S. consumer units.
- In 2024, spending on cereals and bakery products declined 6.1% for U.S. consumer units.
- In 2023, the United States had 9,219 employer establishments classified as retail bakeries.
- In 2022, 2,609 U.S. establishments were classified as commercial bakeries.
- In a 2021 USDA industry analysis, the general baking industry was estimated to employ close to 800,000 skilled individuals in the United States.
- The same 2021 analysis estimated more than $153 billion in overall economic impact for the general baking industry.
- The USDA analysis identified 84 companies and 360 commercial baking plants within its wheat-flour food industry scope.
- Those companies were estimated to consume 102 million hundredweight of wheat flour annually, close to 24% of food-use wheat flour production.
- The selected commercial wheat-flour producers were estimated at $19.8 billion in annual sales.
- For the 2025/26 trade year, the U.S. share of global wheat exports was forecast at about 11%.
- In August 2026, the U.S. city-average CPI for bakery products was 2.4% higher than in August 2025.
- From August 2025 to August 2026, the CPI for cookies rose 5.0% for U.S. city-average consumers.
- From August 2025 to August 2026, the CPI for flour and prepared flour mixes rose 0.6%.
Contents
- U.S. flour use and wheat supply trends
- Bakery product prices and inflation
- Bread, cake, cookie, and sweet-goods prices
- Household spending on cereals and bakery products
- The size and structure of the U.S. baking industry
- Baking inputs, production shares, and market scale
U.S. Flour Use and Wheat Supply Trends
Long-run wheat consumption provides context for baking inputs, but it does not count recipes made at home. USDA measures include broader wheat uses and flour disappearance, so they should be read as supply and use indicators.
| Period | U.S. measure | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1879 | Per-capita wheat consumption | More than 225 lb |
| 1925 | Per-capita wheat consumption | 180 lb |
| 1972 | Per-capita wheat consumption | 110 lb |
| 1997 | Per-capita wheat consumption | 147 lb |
| 2005 | Per-capita flour consumption estimate | 134.4 lb |
| 2025 | Per-capita wheat flour use estimate | 126.6 lb |
Source: Wheat – Wheat Sector at a Glance. The historical figures are wheat consumption, while 2005 and 2025 are flour-use estimates; none is a direct survey of baking occasions.
USDA’s recent production description also shows why “flour” is not a single raw-material category. Hard red winter wheat accounts for about 40% of U.S. wheat production, and hard red spring wheat accounts for about 25%; the former is principally used for bread flour, while the latter supports specialty breads and blending.
Soft red winter wheat typically represents 15% to 20% of production and is used for cakes, cookies, and crackers. White wheat typically represents 12% to 17%, while durum typically represents 3% to 6% and is principally used for pasta, making the latter contextual rather than baking-only.
The United States typically produces about 6% to 7% of world wheat. Its share of global wheat exports was forecast at about 11% for the 2025/26 international trade year, an upstream supply measure rather than a baking-market share.
Across the 2015/16–2024/25 marketing years, U.S. wheat-grain imports averaged 2.2 million metric tons annually. Flour and wheat-product imports averaged about 1.1 million metric tons annually in the same period, expressed in wheat-grain equivalent; not all of these volumes become baked goods.
Bakery Product Prices and Inflation Trends
Price statistics distinguish what producers receive from what consumers pay. The BLS Producer Price Index (PPI) tracks producer prices, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) tracks prices paid by urban consumers.
| Measure | Period | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat PPI | January 2021–May 2022 | +84.4% |
| Wheat PPI | May–August 2022 | -27.9% |
| Wheat PPI | May 2022–December 2023 | -44.5% |
| Flour, flour-base mixes, and doughs PPI | May 2022–December 2023 | -3.1% |
| Bakery-products PPI | May 2022–December 2023 | +10.5% |
| Bakery-products CPI | May 2022–December 2023 | +12.2% |
Source: What is behind the rise in prices for bakery products?. The wheat and flour figures are producer-price measures, not household flour prices.
From January 2021 through December 2023, the bakery-products PPI increased in 35 of 36 months. The same BLS analysis reports that from January 2021 to mid-2022, wheat flour prices rose 48.4% and bakery-product prices rose 12.2%, illustrating that commodity and finished-product measures can move at different rates.
The bakery-products PPI rose 10.2% between May 2020 and May 2022. Its year-over-year increase was 14.5% in November 2022 and 3.8% by December 2023; those are different measurement months, not a single-period change.
Average annual bakery-product expenditures increased 16.1% from 2020 to 2022 for U.S. consumer units. In the same broad context, food spending increased 27.8%, while food-at-home spending increased 15.6%; these categories include much more than baking.
Bread, Cake, Cookie, and Sweet-Goods Price Data
The BLS product categories show that bakery inflation was uneven across product types. The figures below are producer-price changes for the stated periods.
| Product category | May 2020–May 2022 PPI | May 2022–December 2023 PPI |
|---|---|---|
| Bread | +9.0% | +13.2% |
| Soft cake, excluding frozen | +23.2% | +7.3% |
| Cookies, crackers, and related products | +7.7% | +4.0% |
| Other sweet goods, excluding frozen | +17.1% | +14.6% |
Source: What is behind the rise in prices for bakery products?. Bread includes white, wheat, rye, and frozen products; the cookie category includes crackers, and the sweet-goods category is broader than cakes alone.
The consumer-price index for bakery products increased 12.4% from May 2020 to May 2022 for U.S. urban consumers. This is a retail bakery-product measure, not a measure of ingredient costs or the cost of a home-baked recipe.
Household Spending on Cereals and Bakery Products
Household spending data capture purchases by U.S. consumer units, not the number of people who bake or the number of items made at home. The combined BLS category “cereals and bakery products” also includes cereals.
In 2024, average annual food expenditure increased 1.8%, and food-at-home expenditure increased 2.8%. In contrast, spending on cereals and bakery products declined 6.1%, while food-away-from-home spending increased by $12 per consumer unit.
For earlier comparison, food spending rose 12.7% from 2021 to 2022 and 6.9% from 2022 to 2023. The BLS also reported a 16.1% increase in average annual bakery-product expenditures from 2020 to 2022, covering purchased bakery products rather than home-baking ingredients.
Source: Consumer expenditures in 2024 and What is behind the rise in prices for bakery products?.
The Size and Structure of the U.S. Baking Industry
Census establishment counts describe businesses under specific NAICS definitions. They should not be added together as though they represented unique businesses across identical years and programs.
| Category and source | Period | Establishments |
|---|---|---|
| Retail bakeries, Census profile | 2023 | 9,219 employer establishments |
| Retail bakeries, manufacturing table | 2022 | 7,156 |
| Commercial bakeries | 2022 | 2,609 |
| Frozen cakes, pies, and other pastries | 2022 | 214 |
| Cookie and cracker manufacturing | 2022 | 386 |
| Dry pasta, dough, and flour mixes from purchased flour | 2022 | 344 |
| Tortilla manufacturing | 2022 | 402 |
| Cookie, cracker, and pasta manufacturing combined | 2022 | 724 |
Sources: 311811: Retail bakeries – Census Bureau Profile and Manufacturing: Summary Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries for Employer Firms in the U.S., 2022. The 2023 profile and 2022 manufacturing table use different programs, years, and category contexts; the counts are not a direct time series.
The retail-bakery profile concerns businesses making products on premises. Commercial bakeries are a separate category, while frozen pastries, cookies and crackers, dough and mixes, tortillas, and pasta-related entries describe additional manufacturing groupings rather than a single conventional-baking total.
Baking Inputs, Production Shares, and Market Scale
A USDA industry analysis published in 2021 gives a broad commercial view of wheat-flour foods. Its scope is not equivalent to all bakeries or household baking, and its industry figures are estimates where stated.
The analysis estimated close to 800,000 skilled individuals employed in the general baking industry and more than $153 billion in overall economic impact. It identified 84 companies and 360 commercial baking plants within its general-baking-industry scope.
Those companies were estimated to consume 102 million hundredweight of wheat flour annually, close to 24% of total wheat flour produced for food consumption. Their estimated annual sales were $19.8 billion.
Source: Industry Analysis and Justification for Wheat Flour Foods Checkoff. These are report-scope industry estimates, not national-accounts measures of household baking.
The latest supplied CPI detail provides a narrower consumer-price snapshot. In the July 2026 basket, reported in the August 2026 release, bakery products had a relative importance of 0.714% in the U.S. city-average CPI-U consumption basket.
| CPI category | August 2025–August 2026 change | Geography |
|---|---|---|
| Bakery products | +2.4% | U.S. city average |
| Bread | +3.8% | U.S. city average |
| Cakes, cupcakes, and cookies | +3.1% | U.S. city average |
| Cookies | +5.0% | U.S. city average |
| Fresh cakes and cupcakes | +0.8% | U.S. city average |
| Fresh biscuits, rolls, and muffins | +2.0% | U.S. city average |
| Flour and prepared flour mixes | +0.6% | U.S. city average |
Source: Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: U.S. city average, by detailed expenditure category. The CPI basket weight is a consumption-basket measure, not bakery volume or home-baking share; the category labels and August 2026 release month should be retained when using these figures.