Are you unsure of where to start when it comes to bulk pantry or food. This post will walk you step by step through the key elements you need to consider for starting your bulk pantry.
Disclaimer
I do not want to pretend to be an expert in this post, however, after a few requests to share tips on, what I am doing in my hopes of starting a bulk pantry/food storage. it led me to write this post.
What is a bulk pantry
For the sake of this blog post we will label a bulk pantry is excess storage of particular food or pantry items in addition to your daily pantry within you kitchen. This could look like large quantities of flour, meat, canned food or ingredients.
Why should you have a bulk pantry
Bulk buying quality ingredients is often more cost effective. Especially if you into bread making and sourdough for example and tend to use a large amount of this ingredient. It also makes things like specialty ingredients more financially accessible with bulk pricing (thinking here of gluten free flours).
A bulk pantry is helpful in reducing our reliance on the grocery store. Instead of needing weekly or fortnightly trips to the grocery store you can eat out of your home pantry for longer periods of time. Shortages on key ingredients can be stressful and having some excess of these items on hand can help to eliminate these hurdles.
A bulk pantry creates a mindset of cooking from scratch as typically items that you would have in your bulk pantry can be used in various ways and are not restricted to one particular recipe. For example flour can be used for bread, baking, pastry, sauces, and noodles. Another example might be salt. Salt is used for seasoning, cleaning, and preserving. Having some of these items on hand allows you to create healthy, from scratch meals daily.
A bulk pantry is a great place to store garden produce in frozen, canned or dehydrated form. It also has room for bulk meat or seasonal vegetables.
5 considerations when starting your bulk pantry
Here are five main considerations when starting a bulk pantry.
1. Storage
Before beginning to purchase your bulk food think about the location you will store your bulk items. Whether it be a deep freezer, garage, closet or shed. Pantry items will need to be stored correctly to keep well. For example it would not be smart to store your food in a shed which heats up to hot in the summer or inhabits a lot of pests. A well insulated space that doesn’t have direct sunlight is ideal.
If you have limited space you may want to think about limiting your bulk pantry to a few key items that you use daily.
Think about what type of storage containers you will use. I opted for 10L food grade buckets with sealable lids for my pantry storage, and and upright 150L deep freeze for our bulk meat items. Make sure to properly clean containers, storage areas in order to reduce any bugs that might want to creep in.
We also have an old kitchenette cabinet to house these items along with any canned goods.
It would be ideal to purchase gamma lids or something similar to ease access to pantry items. However, this is not essential.
2. Choosing the right bulk food
As mentioned about, when starting your bulk pantry, it is helpful to specific about what food you stock up on. This may seem “obvious” however, so many times we might look at how someone else is doing something and want to copy it exactly. However, these food items might not be what we use on a regular basis. A clear example of this might be storing bulk black beans, when in reality you use black beans in maybe one recipe a year.
Choose the right bulk food by taking stock of the most used and most versatile items in your pantry. An essential for me is spelt flour. With baking sourdough and most of my baking using this flour we use up a lot of flour across the year.
3. Buy in stages
Starting bulk pantry can be expensive initially. Buying items in stages will help with this. My first stage was buying only bulk flour in bulk. Next our family opted to place quarterly bulk meat orders. This year we have added in bulk pantry items like rice, flour, beans and oats. The plan going forward is to build up a home-canned pantry of produce from our small garden or from local farmers/orchards.
Setting up your bulk pantry in stages also gives you opportunity to figure out exactly what you would like to add or what isn’t getting used. For example, high on my list for my bulk pantry is adding in a quality salt for pickling, seasoning and fermenting. When cooking from scratch you require higher quantities of salt. Having a good quality salt on hand is an essential for my home.
Begin documenting what items get used in the most quantity in your home.
4. Bulk Pantry equipment
Here is a list of a few helpful pieces of equipment that will go a long way in setting up your bulk pantry.
Deep Freezer
We opted for a deep freezer about a year ago and for anyone looking to store bulk items I feel this is a must. My deep freezer is predominantly used for meat. However, here in Australia, with the high temperatures and susceptibility to pantry mites its worthwhile choosing to freeze some of your pantry items. I also like to keep a bulk supply of homemade meat stock in my pantry so I always have a supply on hand. This year I opted to freeze some of my vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts. I did this by first freezing them on a baking sheet. Then once frozen popping them into a large zip lock bag. This keeps them from freezing in a large clump. Its very exciting to still be eating broccoli from our garden well into summer!
If you can try to find a upright deep freezer, so much easier to organize things and find things. We picked up our freezer off of Facebook marketplace relatively cheap.
Open Shelving
Although you can stack food items, cans and dry goods its so hard to find anything without disassembling your system. Open shelving keeps things visible and organized. Clearly labeling each item makes the bulk pantry easy to see and use. For our pantry we just wrote on the buckets with permanent marker on the top and sides. Our upright freezer is organized by type on each shelf e.g. beef, chicken, fish, lamb, roasting meat etc.
Freezer/ pantry log
Keeping a log of what you have on hand is an easy way to meal plan, shop and use up what you need to. I know we have all cleaned out the pantry or freezer and found that meal, or packet from who knows when and ended up tossing it for fear of it being off. Its a simple strategy but a worthwhile one.
A few miscellaneous items
- Storage containers or jars as mentioned above.
- Metal or plastic scoops
- Jam funnel
- Labeling equipment like markers, label writer or tabs
5. Create a Bulk Pantry system
In order to ensure you bulk pantry items do not go off be sure to set up your pantry with a system.
For example – keep a limited quantity of the bulk items in your daily pantry, once this is used up refill it with your bulk pantry then on your last jar of that particular item of both the bulk and daily pantry order the new amount. Some people may choose to have a working bucket and a long term bulk bucket. Check out a good example of this in this blog post here.
Another system looks like checking your pantry/freezer log each time you are ready to do you meal planning or weekly shop. Use items you have first then only buy what you need. I have made the mistake of buying double or over spending on my weekly shop by missing this step. So believe me when I say this is more telling myself than recommending it to you!
What is your Why?
I cannot help but add this section in after recently finishing the book “Humble Roots” by Hannah Anderson. Cooking from scratch, buying local, choosing ethically made, building better self sufficiency systems are not wrong, however, if you heart isn’t for God “all is vanity”. Do not forget the wisdom we see in Ecclesiastes. Building wealth, storing up food or protecting your family must be done to the glory of God and in service to our neighbour. We cannot forget to give to the poor. We must build up our bulk pantries or grow our gardens or can our vegetables with a higher purpose. Because without looking to Jesus we will be come prideful, believing all these things are coming from our own greatness rather than from the ultimate provider.
Once again I will highlight my personal perspective. I get so excited about the prospect of self sufficiency, homegrown, organic, pasture raised, from scratch. It can become an idol. I am susceptible to doing these things to feel powerful, secure and to stand out from the crowd. Ooohf now there’s a raw honest moment. But all this to say:
“We are God’s children here and now, for He made us His own. But what we shall hereafter be, He has not yet shown.”
Hymn 72 verse 3 ~ Book of Praise Anglo Genevan Psalter
This is our temporal home, let’s have our sights set firmly on heaven in all the good work we do here!
Check out my blog post on discernment with natural living here.
Lovely read Denae. Blessings to you and your little fam!
Thank you, love reading your site?
Keep up the good encouragements?
Thank you so much Hiedi!