For those of you who buy in bulk:
What food items do you purchase in bulk and how much do you purchase at a time?
Where is the best place to make these purchases (online/local)?
What type of container/how do you store these bulk purchases?
I've been thinking about making bulk purchases of black beans and rice and was curious as to the best way to do it.
Foods I purchase in bulk
Rice, Beans, Flour, Sugar, Salt, Baking soda, Baking powder, yeast, oil, cheese, vinegar... anything i will use up before it spoils/degrades really.
How much do I purchase at a time:
Typically up to as much as I can use before it spoils. Most things though will last as least 6 months, but I'll use up even the jumbo CostCo bag/container in less time than that. e.g. the 22lb (10kg) flour bags could last 6-12 months, but typically last me 3-4.
What do I store it in?
Lots of glass jars, mostly. Giant bags of flour and Sugar are kept inside big food-grade plastic totes still inside their paper sacs. I have lexan containers in my pantry which I re-fill that hold about 5lbs each...makes it easy to grab a few cups of flour and gives me a buffer between when the sac runs out and when I need to restock.
Rice, beans, cous-cous and other grains I store in a motley collection of large glass jars. I have several 1-gallon wide-mouth jugs I picked up somewhere, plus lots of 1-1.5Q mason jars. I like how glass i chemically inert and washes out clean. The jars also fit perfectly in my kitchen cabinets. Cheese I keep unopened in the fridge. I'll stock up when it goes on sale and buy 3-5lbs at a time. As long as no one opens the package it will keep for months. Yeast - in a mason jar in the fridge. Oil - in it's original container, but I have an ~12oz bottle with a quick-pour spout I leave on my counter (like the kind bartenders use).