Tag Archives: buying in bulk

Taking advantage of vegetable bargains

food preservation, frugal strategies, , ,

I think I’ve hit my personal record for buying a huge amount of food for a tiny amount of money and if you’ve been reading here a while, you know that’s saying something.  I spent $45.63 at one store on Wednesday, which included but wasn’t limited to: 4 cases of tomatoes (28 lb each), 7 cases of yams (40 lb each), 19 heads of celery, 150 lb potatoes, and a case of bananas (40 lb).   To be honest, I did have a store credit of $24 from the two cases of yams I bought last month that spoiled in a very short time, so the total would have been a little more had I not had the credit. But I was quite pleased with it.

Note: if you buy something and there’s a problem with it, don’t assume it’s your fault.  I knew that something was wrong when the yams went off so fast (I’ve been buying in bulk and storing in bulk for a couple of years now and this was unprecedented in cold weather), but at first I assumed I’d have to swallow the loss – the store I bought the yams last month from was far away from my home, I no longer had the receipt, and I wasn’t able to return until five weeks after the original purchase.  But I’ve learned it doesn’t hurt to ask, and when I called and explained to them the date I bought them, how I stored them, and what happened, they readily agreed to refund the entire price whenever I’d be back in their area, without having to show any proof of purchase.  It took about five minutes to make the call and get the person in charge on the phone; $24 for five minutes ‘work’ is pretty decent, don’t you think?

Along with my wonderful windfalls came a lot of work!   People often think I’m just lucky that I find so many things so inexpensively, but the truth is that most people walk right past these kind of deals and don’t recognize the opportunity in front of them.  Or even if they realize the price is really low, they don’t know what to do with such huge quantities without it spoiling before they use it.  I never let a concern about quantities stop me from buying (as you see from the fact I bought almost 300 lb of yams :)), I figure somehow I’ll find something to do with it! 😆

The tomatoes were super cheap because they were very, very ripe.  So I had to process them right away.  That meant that I (along with my kids) spent a solid chunk of time yesterday washing, chopping, cooking, and canning.   Was it worth it?  I think so.  We made 15 quarts of tomato sauce, 12 quarts of salsa, and 5 quarts of tomato juice.  Pretty good, since the ingredients for all of it didn’t cost more than $15!  (My kids wanted to know why I didn’t buy all of the cases available at this price.)  It’s a nice feeling of satisfaction at the end of a day to see the counter filled with beautiful jars of home canned foods.  And I like knowing that my kids are developing an attitude of self sufficiency as well as learning real life skills like preserving foods.

I was considering canning the celery but to do that I’d have had to pressure can it.  Though if you look at the actual processing time, pressure canning looks faster than water bath canning, it doesn’t take into account the time needed to bring the canner up to pressure, process the food, then wait for the canner to depressurize before moving on to the next batch. That can add up to an hour to each load.  Since I wanted to get about 80+pounds of tomatoes dealt with in one day (saved some to use fresh), I decided to only can what I could water bath and the celery ended up being dehydrated instead.  Dehydrating celery is so easy – just slice it thinly and put it on the trays.  But it’s honestly almost disheartening to watch sixteen heads of celery becoming so compact that they fit into a quart sized jar – and there’s still room left in the jar!

I’m planning to can a bunch of the yams, since they’re in beautiful condition now but they won’t stay that way forever.  But I won’t get to that until next week, since there’s no rush.  Then I’ll have them in a ready to use form to add to soups, stews, or casseroles.

The bananas were very ripe (had lots brown flecks on them but weren’t turning black), but my kids attacked them so I doubt there will be enough left by Sunday to even consider turning into fruit leather.  Bananas make great snacks since they’re so filling, especially when spread with lots of peanut butter.

An additional frugal perk of canning in the winter is that you really appreciate the added warmth from the hours of cooking and steamy smells wafting throughout the house.

(This post is part of Frugal Fridays.)

Avivah

Buying in bulk through supermarkets

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>>about your bulk food distributor- do you have one source that will get you what you need, or do you need a different person for each product or store type? do you go through the local stores, or do you just go over their heads? the stores here don’t seem too eager to help someone not shop by them- even if i offer to pay them for their help… but if that’s what you do, then i will keep plugging away here.<<

I just finished making my bulk order today, so now’s a good time to answer this!  Buying in bulk is a great way to save money since generally the price per unit will be lower if you’re buying a large amount (not always, though, so remember to check the unit price to be sure it’s worth your time).  I’ve gotten more adventuresome over time, so here’s a bit of my progression and what’s worked for me; maybe one of the ideas will work for you.

To start with, I asked my local health food store if they had bulk amounts.  They did, and routinely offered a ten percent discount if you buy it in bulk.  That’s nice, but wasn’t very impressive.  But I stuck with that for years since I wasn’t buying the large amounts I buy now.

I  used to shop once a week, so buying in bulk wasn’t very important to me (actually, I felt it was a liability at the time since I didn’t want to find room to store that amount of food – but my priorities have changed since then).  But 3.5 years ago when I started to grind my own wheat for health reasons, I wanted to find another source since the local health food store was selling regular white winter wheat for over a dollar a pound (after the discount) and it was more expensive in that case to grind my own wheat than to buy whole wheat flour.

Then I started looking to buy directly from the wholesalers that the health food stores were buying from.  I asked the local health food store who their supplier was and did some online searching for other bulk food distributors.  Most bulk suppliers won’t sell directly to individuals, but some will.  I found one three hours away that sold to stores and individuals and started buying from them.

I didn’t go often at all – I didn’t need many items, and got enough of those to last me at about 3 months so I wouldn’t have to make the trip too frequently.  At that time a 50 lb bag of wheat was only $12, less than a quarter of what I would have paid in the health food store, even after my bulk discount, so it was a big savings (three bags I bought at a time were $36 vs. $150), particularly since I was driving the veggie van then and gas costs weren’t a concern.

But driving three hours away took a lot of time and energy, particularly since the farmer I got my raw milk from was two hours in another direction.  It was a very, very long day when I did that shopping.  Then I noticed that some of the stores I shopped in had bulk sections where many different foods were repackaged from the individual large bags into small individually priced bags by the store.  Some even had 50 lb sacks of oats on the bottom shelves.

I started buying from these stores in the smaller bags, even though it was a little more expensive than buying from the wholesaler since I saved myself a lot of driving.  And I also started getting the 50 lb sacks of oatmeal.

Then it occurred to me to speak to the manager of the bulk section in one of the supermarkets.  I try to look for win-win ways to work with people, and this was an example of this.  I wouldn’t ask a store to help me shop somewhere else, because there’s no advantage to them.  You have to think about how your request will benefit both sides. A store is in business to make money and isn’t likely to do you favors if there’s no profit for them.

My question to her was if I could order bulk amounts through the store, so the store was my middleman and I paid the store for my order.  She had never been asked this before, but pretty quickly agreed.

Why would they do this?  The store makes money since they tack on 20 percent to the price they pay when selling it to me.  There’s very little work involved for them – they just add my order onto theirs when calling it in to their distributor (actually the same source I was buying direct from), and put my stuff to the side in a separate shopping cart for me when it comes in.

I come in later the same day the order arrives, so it’s not sitting around in their way.  This is very nice for me since they’re willing to order anything for me that their distributor offers, even if they don’t get it for the store.  And the price I end up paying is comparable to what I was paying when buying directly from the wholesaler (the wholesaler sells at a lower price to the stores than to a private customer so they had room to mark it up and I still paid basically the same thing).  Very convenient, and good for everyone.

If you have an Amish or Mennonite population within a couple of hours of you, it will be worth your while to explore their stores.  These stores are used to selling in large quantities to large families and are unlikely to blink twice at your request.

I’ve spoken to several stores and all of them were willing to order bulk amounts/case lots for me – the difference is how much of a discount they’ll give (some, like Trader Joes, don’t offer a discount at all).  I would expect that if you present your request as I did, that most store managers in other parts of the country would be willing to work with you.

Good luck!

Avivah