The total of imported wheat used in the UK during September increased by more than 38,000 tonnes (t) compared to the same month last year.
The news comes as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published the latest national statistics in its Cereals Usage by Millers, Brewers and Maltsters UK report for September 2012.
Imported wheat usage grew to 104,100t in the five weeks to 29 September, up from 66,000t used in the same month in 2011.
Home-grown wheat usage in the UK grew by 7.8% to 521,600t during the five-week period, but closing stocks for the month were down 26.3% to 132,700t.
Closing stocks for imported wheat in September stood at 138,500t, more than a 70% growth in comparison to the five weeks to 1 October 2011 when it totalled 81,400t.
Bread flour saw a 4.41% rise in usage to 280,900t during September 2012, with white and wholemeal bread flours seeing year-on-year increases of 4.9% and 4.5% respectively, while brown bread flour dropped 8.1% to 8,600t.
Usage of biscuit-making flour fell 4.6% to 55,800t as well as cake flour by 5.4% to 10,500t.
For the 2012/13 crop year to date, which includes the 13-week period to 29 September, the usage of total wheat milled grew by 5.7% to almost 1.6 million tonnes, with imported wheat seeing a 25.4% increase to 224,200t, and home-grown wheat experiencing a marginal growth of 3% to 1,371,500t.
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