Household Tip: Saving Money on Food Storage Buckets

Flickr Photo Credit: Karpacious

White plastic food storage buckets go for big bucks on web sites that sell bulk dry goods. But here’s a tip a friend of mine got when picking apples at a family farm in Arizona.

The buckets people were putting their produce in were white plastic and my friend asked the owner if she could buy some of the buckets to take home. While the woman had to say no due to the fact the buckets were needed on the farm, she did share an interesting little tip.

This establishment had to submit to health code inspections periodically. The code officer had told her that rather than paying major bucks for storage buckets that were labeled “food grade”, that any bucket made of white plastic was fine. The farm was buying their white plastic food storage buckets at Home Depot. They sell them in small and large sizes and have the snap on lids to match. The great news? They are dirt cheap.

The smaller sizes are great for storing bulk dry mixes you make at home, or smaller amounts of dry goods. The larger buckets exactly hold a 25 pound bag of flour from a warehouse store. I just had to buy more, because our others are stored with the movers until we decide where we are going to be permanently. We brought them home and washed them out with hot soapy water mixed with a little bleach for sanitizing. Once they were thoroughly dried, they were fine for storing bulk rice, flour and other dry goods. Slap on a label and date with a permanent marker and masking tape. Done!