Does anyone buy dried foods in bulk?

[PorridgeAgainAbney]

Hi. I'm looking into starting to buy some foods in bulk, partly to save money but also to save on packaging as it drives me mad to be getting bags of things so quickly because supermarkets don't always do large sizes. Considering flour, bread flour, dried apricots, dates, lentil pasta, pea pasta, porridge oats, barley flakes, rye flakes, quinoa, and wholegrain rice.

I'm looking at costs of sizes that will last around 3-6 months as in most cases that makes the products cheaper than the supermarkets, but without risking food going off: I know all these things will have a long shelf life, but that's for unopened; does it sound reasonable to have all these things opened for up to 6 months until they are used?

Does anyone do this and think it works well for them? Did anything turn out to be a bit of a waste? Any advice welcome .

[Otherpeoplesteens]

I buy rice in 10kg bags and it keeps for several years no problem.

Also bought dried beans in 12.5kg bags once and had to buy two bags to get free delivery. That's a lot of beans. Once they get to be several years old they take longer to rehydrate and cook, but as long as they don't go mouldy they're still edible.

When I lived in the tropics I used to have a lot of problems with weevils in pasta after a very short time, whether opened or unopened, but I've had 12 month old pasta here in the UK with no problems.

[tabbycat985]

I buy dried beans, pasta & quinoa in bulk from amazon mostly. You can get smaller bags 3kg which might be what you're after if you want a few months worth of supply.
I store it in airtight containers & it's easy to stack & label that way. Just make sure to label with the date & don't mix old & new packages.

[PorridgeAgainAbney]

Cheers both, that's really helpful. I would have no issue buying enough to last 1 year plus, but I have to also consider DH's reaction if he saw 2 years' worth of quinoa in the larder: concern about the upfront cost but depression about the dinners I'll be inflicting on him .

Good to know though that it's worth looking at bigger packs than originally to bring the cost per kg down even further.

[maslinpan]

Or you could get a couple of friends to do a bulk order with you and cut down delivery costs.

[PorridgeAgainAbney]

Yeah I thought about that too as a friend of mine used to belong to a community collective in another area. I have a couple of friends who have quite similar tastes so would definitely use some of the things I'd want to buy. Even if it meant that only the quinoa and rice could be bought in much bigger volumes that would save a bit. I'd love to propose the idea of lots of us doing it at work but I couldn't really handle that at the moment so that might happen a bit later when I have some time on my hands to organise it .

[TooMinty]

We (my DH) accidentally bought a year's supply of 00 flour from Amazon recently, do you want some?!