The bench · Flour

Pizza flour, compared

The cheapest way to make a pizza, and the only category where importing from Italy genuinely works.

Flour is shelf-stable, so it crosses a border without a cold chain and without the customs problems that make importing dough impractical. A 250g dough ball takes roughly 150g of flour — which means the flour in a homemade pizza costs between 27p and 45p.

About the ratings on this page. We have not tested these. Where a seller publishes a customer rating we record it per source, with the count and the month checked — never blended, and never used to order the table. Where a maker publishes no product rating we record their company-wide score instead and label it as such — a Trustpilot score measures delivery and service, not whether the food is any good. Counts under about 20 are marked as too thin to judge. We publish nothing of our own until we have bought the product and cooked with it twice; where we have, the row carries our verdict and who wrote it. Our method.

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How we count additives.

Flour	Pack	Price	Per kg	Milled
Matthews Cotswold Pizza Flour (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-01	1.5kg	From £2.70	£1.80	UK
Additives: not published Buy at Matthews Cotswold (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 11.8% Strength Not published Type Strong white Wheat British hard wheat, milled Gloucestershire Ferment Not published Milled in Gloucestershire from British hard wheat. The cheapest per kilo of any pizza flour we have priced, Italian or British. Out of stock on the mill’s own site when we checked on 7 September 2026. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 Own site 4 reviews, no average published thin
Regenerative Cotswold Pizza Flour (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-02	1.5kg	£3.49	£2.33	UK
Additives: not published Buy at Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein Not published Strength Not published Type Strong white Wheat Regeneratively farmed British wheat Ferment Not published Same mill, regeneratively farmed British wheat. The mill has no direct product page for this line, so the price and link are Ratton Pantry’s, checked 8 September 2026. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Matthews Italian Tipo 00 (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-03★ Great Taste 2020	1.5kg	From £3.00	£2.00	UK
Additives: not published Buy at Matthews Cotswold (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein Not published Strength Not published Type Italian style 00 Wheat Italian wheat, blended in the Cotswolds Ferment Not published Blended in the Cotswolds from Italian ancient durum wheat. Their site states it "won top flour in the Great Taste Awards 2020" — a British-blended flour beating the Italian originals. Awards: Their site states this flour "won top flour in the Great Taste Awards 2020". Great Taste accreditations run for three years, so a 2020 win no longer appears in the register of currently-valid awards — the win was real, the badge is simply out of date. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 Own site 5.0 from 8 reviews thin
Caputo Blue Pizzeria "00" (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-04	5kg	£11.99	£2.40	Italy
Additives: not published Buy at Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 12.5% Strength W 260/270 Type Tipo 00 Wheat Not stated Ferment 24–36 hours 12.5% protein, W 260/270. The Naples default and the flour most of the delivered doughs name when they name one. Buying the 5kg sack is the cheapest route to it. Awards: None claimed. No Caputo product appears in the Guild of Fine Food register; the only Caputo entry is a doughball made by another producer using their flour. Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Caputo Pizzeria "00" (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-05	1kg	£2.99	£2.99	Italy
Additives: not published Buy at Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 12.5% Strength W 260/270 Type Tipo 00 Wheat Not stated Ferment 24–36 hours Same flour, small bag. Elastic, made for slow-risen dough. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Caputo Nuvola Tipo "0" (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-06	1kg	£2.99	£2.99	Italy
Additives: not published Buy at Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 12.5% Strength W 260–280 Type Tipo 0 Wheat Not stated Ferment Not published Type 0 rather than 00 — less refined, built for a puffier, airier cornicione. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Caputo Semola Rimacinata (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-07	1kg	£3.29	£3.29	Italy
Additives: not published Buy at Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 13% Strength Not published Type Semola rimacinata Wheat Durum wheat Ferment For dusting and pasta Double-milled semolina. Not a dough flour — this is what you dust the peel with so the pizza slides. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Caputo Cuoco Saccorosso "00" (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-08	1kg+	From £6.99	£6.99	Italy
Additives: not published Visit Ratton Pantry (opens in a new tab) Awards and ratings Protein 13% Strength W 300–320 Type Tipo 00 Wheat Not stated Ferment Long, cold-risen Higher protein, for long ferments of 24 hours and beyond. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 No rating published anywhere we could find
Caputo Fioreglut Gluten Free (opens the seller’s site in a new tab)FL-09	1kg	£8.00 Ocado	£8.00	Italy
3 declared additives Buy at Ocado (opens in a new tab) Ingredients, awards and ratings Protein Not published Strength Not published Type Gluten free blend Wheat Naples, Italy Ferment Not published Gluten free wheat starch, dextrose, maize starch, buckwheat flour, rice starch, psyllium seed fibre, thickener: guar, flavouring. The gluten-free flour most pizzerias reach for, and the only one here whose declaration we can read. More than three times the price per kilo of Caputo Blue, and still cheaper per pizza than buying gluten-free dough ready made. Ocado is the cheapest source we have found at £8.00; the brand’s own listing is £9.99. Awards: None claimed Customer ratings — not ours checked September 2026 Ocado 4.8 from 32 reviews

Finding 003 · Flour

The flour in a pizza costs about 30p. The cheapest ready-made dough is £1.20.

At 150g of flour a ball, Cotswold pizza flour works out at 27p a pizza and Caputo Blue at 36p. Add water, salt and a few pence of yeast and a Neapolitan dough ball costs you well under 40p to make.

That is a third of the cheapest supermarket dough and a quarter of the cheapest delivered ball. What you pay for in a ready-made dough is the ferment, the portioning, the cold chain and the not having to plan 24 hours ahead — which for a lot of people is worth it. It is just worth knowing the size of the gap.

British flour is cheaper, and one of them won

Matthews Cotswold is £1.80 a kilo against £2.40 for a 5kg sack of Caputo Blue and £2.99 for the 1kg bag. Their Italian Tipo 00 blend — milled in Gloucestershire — is the one that took top flour at the Great Taste Awards in 2020.

Why importing flour works and importing dough doesn’t

Flour keeps for months at room temperature. Dough needs a freezer and arrives to a customs queue that can hold a parcel three weeks. Every Italian dough sold in Britain gets here through a UK distributor, not a border.

Finding 006 · Flour

The two numbers that decide a pizza flour, and who refuses to print them.

Protein percentage tells you how much gluten a flour can build. The W value tells you how much punishment the dough will take before it collapses — roughly, how long you can ferment it. Below about W 260 you are making pizza today; above W 300 you can leave a dough in the fridge for three days and it will still hold.

Caputo publish both on every flour: 12.5% and W 260/270 on the Blue, 12.5% and W 260–280 on Nuvola, 13% and W 300–320 on the Cuoco Saccorosso. That last one is the flour to buy if you cold-ferment, and it is the only one here that says so in numbers.

Matthews publish neither, on any of their three flours — including the Italian Tipo 00 that won a Great Taste award. The Cotswold Pizza Flour states 11.8% protein and nothing else. So the British mill competing with Caputo on quality gives you less information to judge it by than the Italian one does.

All specifications read from the seller’s own product page on 7 September 2026. Where a figure is not published we say so rather than source it from a third party.

Common questions about pizza flour

What flour should I use for pizza?

Two numbers decide it and most bags print neither: protein percentage and W strength. Higher protein and a higher W hold a long ferment without the dough going slack, which is what you need for a 24 to 48 hour cold prove. The Naples default sits around 12.5% protein and W 260 to 280. Only one range on this table publishes both figures in numbers; the British mill publishes neither, including on the flour that won a Great Taste award.

Is Italian 00 flour actually necessary?

No. 00 describes how finely the grain is milled, not how strong the flour is, and a strong British bread flour will make a very good pizza. What 00 gives you is a softer, more extensible dough that opens easily by hand — useful if you are stretching rather than rolling. Flour is also the one category where importing from Italy genuinely works, because it is shelf-stable and crosses a border without a cold chain.

How much does the flour in a pizza actually cost?

About 30p. At 150g a ball the cheapest flour here works out at 27p a pizza and the Naples default at 36p. Add water, salt and a few pence of yeast and a Neapolitan dough ball costs well under 40p to make — a third of the cheapest supermarket dough and a quarter of the cheapest delivered ball. What you pay for in a ready-made dough is the ferment, the portioning, the cold chain, and not having to plan a day ahead. Compare the routes on price.