Bulk Food Shopping 101

This week Saturday, I went to my bulk food store, and got some great deals, including this amazing box of apples for just $5. They are red delicious, emphasis on the DELICIOUS.

Someone emailed me recently with a question about bulk shopping, and I guessed it would be useful to post my response to her here:

Pardon my stupidity, but what's a bulk food store? Not like Sam's Club obviously because nothing is that cheap there. Where do you find something
like that?!

Well, I found ours through some other home schoolers in our area who were
always talking about it. I actually had to be led to it, as it is located
inside of what appears to be a private farm at first glance, and it is down
a few dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. They now have a sign, but you still feel almost like you are going on private property until you get closer. It is 45 minutes' drive, but we only
go every other month or more. The prices make it worth my while, even with
$4 a gallon gas.

This particular store is owned and operated by a Mennonite family, and it is
located in one of the pole barns on their farm. When I lived in the city,
there was another similar store located in one of the out-buildings of a
large Seventh Day Adventist church. This Mennonite Run store (called
Country View Bulk Foods, and located in Snover, Michigan, north of Marlette
off of M-46 for any of you Michganders out there--I can give you more
specific info if you need it!) buys local vegetables and fruits, most of it
is seasonal (In other words, you don't always find bushels of apples sitting outside), and most of the dry goods are packaged in smaller bags, by weight. I ask for larger bags. Since I am driving almost an hour, I am not going to buy a wee
bag of wheat--I'm going for the big one (50 pounds for just $18.25, or $0.37 per pound).

I also annually buy 100 pounds of Oatmeal (for $9.00) ,and that lasts me the year (usually). They special order 50 pound bags of Rye Berries for me too upon request. The spices though---good golly, it's so cheap! :-)) I especially love the idea of buying mostly locally grown fruits and veggies, and local milk, eggs, and cheese.

You can also start a bulk foods coop by looking up the different places that
sell whole grains, flours, and so forth in bulk (the name escapes me right
now of the main company--but I know you can buy wheat directly from Wheat Montana, for example). Co-ops I've belonged to had everyone place an order with the main
person in charge, that way they made the minimum amount the company required
(I think it was $200-300 in goods??) and they shipped it to the house of the
main person in charge in a large 18 wheeler!

With some co-ops, everyone gets together to package things up into smaller packs (for example, if 5 families
went in on a 50 pound bag of wheat berries--they would work together
packaging it into smaller amounts). Sometimes other co-ops, like the one I
belonged to in college, have a small storefront too that is open to the
public, though members get the best prices.

If you google your city (or the largest city near you) and the words "Bulk
Food Co-op" or "Bulk Foods Stores" you may find something there.

When I went to college in Marquette, Michigan, we had two bulk food natural
foods stores that were small, on either side of town. They bagged up the
brown rice and wheat and all of that in individually packaged smaller bags,
but you could also buy them in the huge bags as they came at the store
(because this was a smaller store, they wanted you to give them notice if
you wanted a huge bag, and as I was just a college student, that was unneeded). For the one, it was a bulk foods co-op, and each
person who joined (for an annual fee of something like $25), also had to
work a little bit each month, either packaging the foods, or helping unload
the truck, or working in the store. The store was open to the public, but
had a markup of 40% (typical retail), which co-op members did not have to
pay, just by showing their cards. The store was located in a building that
one of the members owned, and it was just a small wee office, with so many
shelves you could hardly walk. It was a good thing for me, a poor college
student who was a vegetarian at the time. For just a few hours of work
each month, and $25 a year, I got rice for 30 cents a pound. Local
farmers and gardeners in the Marquette area also sold their goods via the co-op,
and so we got farm fresh eggs and things like that too.

The sad part is that because these little gems are usually family run, and not big conglomerates, it is very much dependant on the area in which you live. Also, most low-cost bulk food places don't pay for advertising, or for the best storefronts, because people usually go out of their way to find them, therefore you need to do some hard looking. They won't be found at the local mall or shopping center! Ask others around you, especially anyone with a large family who is on a tight budget. Most Seasoned Moms of Many in your area, unless they are unusually wealthy, have the bead on the good deals in town.