Where to put all this food storage

One of the most important principles with food storage is to store what you eat, and eat what you store. To do that, find a place in your home where you can store large quantities of food, such as canned goods and bulk items. You should also designate a place in or near your kitchen to keep smaller quantities of those items to use when you are cooking.

Most people already have a kitchen cupboard or shelf that they use for a pantry. Here is an example of kitchen shelves with small containers for items such as flour, rice, sugar, beans, etc.:

Larger containers of those same items could be kept in a storage room. When the smaller containers in the kitchen are empty they can be refilled from the larger containers in the storage room. This is a good system for rotating and using food storage.

However, even if you don't have a separate room for food storage, it is still possible to find places to store food. Below are a few ideas.

Build or buy shelves for food storage. These shelves could be in the basement or in a closet anywhere in the house:

You can also put food into boxes. Boxes are a good idea for storing smaller items (such as spices, cake mixes, or jello). Boxes are also good for stacking, so you can fit more food in a small space. (Be sure to label the boxes!)

You can purchase clear plastic containers, or you can use cardboard boxes. Many grocery stores will give you their cardboard boxes if you ask. Produce boxes are especially suited for stacking and storing. If you or your neighbors have a home-based business, you may have access to cardboard boxes of similar size, such as these boxes:

If you store a lot of canned goods, a rolling shelf such as this one makes it easy to organize and rotate the food. The shelves are slanted, so you put newly purchased items in at one end and they roll forward. When you need a can you take it from the forward end, so you are always using the oldest cans first. These are fairly simple to build.

Dry food items (such as grains) are easily stored in air-tight buckets (which were described in more detail in the previous post). It is recommended that these buckets not be stored directly on the floor (to avoid condensation inside the bucket). In this picture you will see that they are sitting on a small platform:

In the next picture you will see an island of buckets. This is a food storage room with shelves built along the walls. The room had a lot of empty space in the middle. There is a pallet in the middle of the floor. There are 27 buckets stacked up on this pallet. Most of the buckets are easily accessible, and there is room to walk all the way around this "island."

If you don't have a storage room, you can still have food storage. Here is another place to store food--under a bed. If you have a bedskirt, the food will not be visible from the room. If you store food around the house like this, it is helpful to keep a list of where food is. You can also keep a tally on the list and mark each time an item is used so you know when to replace it.

Here is another creative place to store food. This couch is at an angle in the corner. What is behind the couch is not visible from anywhere in the room:

But if you could see behind the couch you would find two buckets with bulk food storage:

This is an end table with a lamp on top:

But the end table is actually a bucket of food storage:

If you have more ideas, please comment and share them!

Food Storage Containers

There are several ways to store items purchased for food storage. Always use a food-grade container. (Food grade containers will be labeled "PETE" or "PET"). Store food in tightly sealed containers to keep them free from insects. Food will store best and longest if it is in a cool, dark, dry place, and in an air-tight container.

I have not seen these pails for sale at local stores, but you can do a Google search for "5 gallon plastic pail" and find many online retailers. A member of our ward orders items such as these each month from Emergency Essentials. By ordering as a group we can save on shipping. Contact me if you are interested in this.

These buckets come with this style of lid:

This type of lid works fine. You may wish to purchase a lid lifter to help open the lids. (A lid lifter is about $5 and you only need one lifter--it can be used repeatedly on multiple buckets).

You can also purchase a gamma seal lid which can be twisted open easily. If you are regularly using your bulk storage items, and if you don't mind spending the extra money (about $6 apiece), this is a very convenient lid.

You can often get similar buckets for free from a local bakery (including a bakery in a grocery store). Their frosting and other items come in these and they typically just throw them away. They will often save them for you if you ask, or they will tell you a good time of day/week to come and collect them. Usually the lids will seal fine, but sometimes they have been opened carelessly and don't quite shut tight anymore. If they don't shut tight, then use them for pre-packaged foods (such as raisins, Jell-o, pasta, etc.) because without a tight seal, they will not keep insects out of open grains, etc. This is a frosting bucket from a bakery:

You can purchase bulk foods from the church home storage center in Kansas City. You can also package these bulk foods at the home storage center. There are two options for packaging: in #10 cans, or in mylar pouches. For more information, you can contact the home storage center (816-453-4269), or you can ask me.

You can also use plastic containers such as Rubbermaid storage containers (see container with blue lid in the photo below). You can re-use thick plastic containers that have previously held other food items (such as the apple juice container which is now used to hold rice, also in the photo below). You can use other containers as well, such as these two glass or plastic containers that previously held other food items.

Just make sure that all containers are clean and dry and can be properly shut. Make sure they are food-grade and made of thick, sturdy plastic. (Milk cartons, for example, are not sturdy enough for long-term storage of liquid, and not thick enough to keep out weevil or other insects).