Production in January-March 2016 was down 10% from the year before.

The whole wheat production figures, published in Flour Milling Products by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), offered the latest and strongest signal yet that U.S. demand for whole wheat flour has peaked.

At 5.168 million cwts, the quarterly production figure was the smallest since NASS began publishing industry-wide flour production data covering the period beginning in the third quarter of 2014. The peak during this period was 6.326 million cwts in July-September 2015. The previous low was 5.449 million cwts in October-December 2015. Production in January-March 2016 was down 10% from the year before.

With the decline, whole wheat flour production in the second quarter of 2016 equated to 5% of total U.S. flour production, down from 5.3% in the first quarter of 2016 and down from a recent peak of 5.9% in July-September 2015.

While data prior to 2014 is not available from the USDA, whole wheat flour production rose rapidly in the 2000s, according to figures published each year by World Grain’s sister publication Milling & Baking News,. As recently as 2002-03, whole wheat flour production accounted for only about 2% of total U.S. wheat flour production, a figure that climbed to about 5% by 2010.

Whole wheat semolina production, which has been shifting abruptly up and down from one quarter to the next, was down sharply in April-June. At 158,000 cwts, whole wheat semolina production was down 24% from January-March production and accounted for only 2.1% of all semolina production. Production was down 7% from 170,000 cwts in the second quarter last year.