Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A Few Options On Longer Term Food Storage

We have spent the majority of the month talking about ways to save on things you eat everyday. I wanted to focus one post on some good options in acquiring foods that have a considerably longer shelf life.

Option #1: The LDS Dry Pack Cannery. Long-term food storage will consistently be cheaper here. Particularly Hard Red Wheat as the Church grows their own and Powdered Milk. Buying from the cannery is nice because if you are buying items that you want to can...you have access to their canning equipment (which is fantastic!). To get a price list and see what food the cannery offers click HERE. If you do not live by or have access to an LDS Cannery, the Church also sells a "starter kit" for a very reasonable price. Click HERE for more information.

Option #2: Honeyville Grain. Honeyville is not necessarily the cheapest (although they have been cheaper in certain items), but they have a lengthy offering of food storage items. They carry the basics as well as many different dehydrated and freeze-dried fruits and veggies, all sorts of muffin, pancake, brownie mixes, a great variety of pasta and beans and many others. I am not sure what the delivery parameters are, but within a certain area, Honeyville will deliver food storage items to your door if you order over 2500 lbs. That might seem like an insurmountable amount, but you would be surprised how fast the weight adds up and if you get together with some of your neighbors, you will reach the weight requirement in no time. The greatest advantage to this is that an order over 2500 lbs also qualifies you for the "bulk" rate, which is the cheapest price they offer. I did this with my ward and placed about 7 different orders in a years time. Everyone was satisfied with what they got and they loved having the food delivered right to our neighborhood. To get a current price list (they can fax or email it to you) and to see where they deliver call 801-972-2168. You can also order online (the prices online are different then the ones they will fax you, if you are able to by local...it will be cheaper) by clicking HERE.

Option #3: Internet-grocer.net . I have not used this service yet, but I have looked at some of their items and have been impressed with their prices. A few days ago a friend called me about some canned butter he had just tasted. It was "RED FEATHER" brand butter and he said it was absolutely and surprisingly fantastic. The shelf life is about 25 years, but he said he would use it on a daily basis...it was that good. He bought it on sale at a local grocery store for $4.99 and internet-grocer sells it for the same price, so it is worth checking out. Click HERE to get to their website.

There are many more options out there to help you acquire a storage of food at a reasonable cost, these are just a few. If you have suggestions of your own...please let us know. We will continue to discuss this topic in posts to come.

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