Bulk buying

EagerLearner

Hi all,
I'd love to bulk buy these:

Gluten free oats, best price I've seen is 5kg on amaxon
Cat food, at the moment get Lidl dry and wet food which he seems to love
Rice, easy cook
Lentils
Peanut butter
Pasta
Tuna
Passata

Are there any online different stores, or should I stick to Tesco, Lidl, amazon and just stock up?

ajbell

5kg is not a price and bulk buying cat food is great but do you have a cat?.

I_luv_cats

ajbell wrote: »

5kg is not a price and bulk buying cat food is great but do you have a cat?.

You know kitties taste changes!!

I stocked-up on Jelly Whiskas and Puss taste changed to Gravy so it may not be wise to stock-up too much :eek:


I often look on Mysupermarket for best prices for catfood and bulk items

nuatha

Gluten-free oats, best price I've seen is 5kg on amaxon
Rice, easy cook
Lentils

The above in 28Kg bags

Peanut butter
In 5Kg buckets

I'd look for a Suma Wholefood based food co-op, or a stockist who will allow you to order via them at a small premium. You could set up your own food co-op - from memory their minimum order is £400

Pasta

I've struggled to beat Lidl's prices on a regular basis for a decent quality pasta, though I've occasionally hit on for wholesale sacks at a good price.

"Cat food, at the moment get Lidl dry and wet food which he seems to love"

I wouldn't bulk buy a different cat food until you know he will eat it regularly. Sainsbury's tins are the cheapest I've found that our cats will enjoy. We buy cat stars (biscuits) in 28Kg sacks from an equine supplier and mix with other bulk cat biscuits to add variety.
Dreamies we generally buy from Costco (average 70p/pack) and sometimes from a wholesaler (15 cases of 8pkts at £1 per case being an exceptionally good find). The Asda version of Dreamies go down well with our cats.

Tuna
Passata
We buy at Costco both turn up regularly as regular offers - at very good prices.

The downsides of shopping this way are tying up sizeable amounts of cash on food stocks, and the amount of space required to store food (and keeping on top of stocks, rotating and maintaining them).

EagerLearner

ajbell wrote: »

5kg is not a price and bulk buying cat food is great but do you have a cat?.

I'm addicted to cat food and want to stare at it :rotfl: Uhm yep have a cat.

Amazon is cheapest I've seen, could not remember the price that very second per kg

EagerLearner

I_luv_cats wrote: »

You know kitties taste changes!!

I stocked-up on Jelly Whiskas and Puss taste changed to Gravy so it may not be wise to stock-up too much :eek:


I often look on Mysupermarket for best prices for catfood and bulk items

True he's been OK with both of the jelly and gravy ones from Lidl for a few years now so I'll poss just keep buying theirs

EagerLearner

nuatha wrote: »

Gluten-free oats, best price I've seen is 5kg on amaxon
Rice, easy cook
Lentils

The above in 28Kg bags

Peanut butter
In 5Kg buckets

I'd look for a Suma Wholefood based food co-op, or a stockist who will allow you to order via them at a small premium. You could set up your own food co-op - from memory their minimum order is £400

Pasta

I've struggled to beat Lidl's prices on a regular basis for a decent quality pasta, though I've occasionally hit on for wholesale sacks at a good price.

"Cat food, at the moment get Lidl dry and wet food which he seems to love"

I wouldn't bulk buy a different cat food until you know he will eat it regularly. Sainsbury's tins are the cheapest I've found that our cats will enjoy. We buy cat stars (biscuits) in 28Kg sacks from an equine supplier and mix with other bulk cat biscuits to add variety.
Dreamies we generally buy from Costco (average 70p/pack) and sometimes from a wholesaler (15 cases of 8pkts at £1 per case being an exceptionally good find). The Asda version of Dreamies go down well with our cats.

Tuna
Passata
We buy at Costco both turn up regularly as regular offers - at very good prices.

The downsides of shopping this way are tying up sizeable amounts of cash on food stocks, and the amount of space required to store food (and keeping on top of stocks, rotating and maintaining them).

That's super helpful thank you and I agree on Lidl pasta. We've got some room but definitely not enough for 28kg dry cat food :rotfl:
Wow that was a super deal on the dreamies, must say that he only gets treats like that rarely, milk and fresh roast chicken scraps are plentiful though.
Passata I think Lidl is best I've found, esp when they do the bottle on a deal.

I think for now I'll get the oats which saves a lot already, and keep an eye out.

Considering buying the next Lidl tea offer, I have good amounts of laundry liquid I got on offer and also picked up lots of bin bags recently at the pound land store when they had the 15% off. I think I got 20 bags of 50l for £0.79 in the end, best price to date. I got 12 bags :cool:

I do like a bargain esp on items we regularly buy.

Any thoughts on toilet roll? Best price is £0.23per roll from Lidl as far as I've found for something decent.

EagerLearner

nuatha wrote: »

Gluten-free oats, best price I've seen is 5kg on amaxon
Rice, easy cook
Lentils

The above in 28Kg bags

All those items as 28kg bags, or just the lentils? And where from please?

nuatha

EagerLearner wrote: »

That's super helpful thank you and I agree on Lidl pasta. We've got some room but definitely not enough for 28kg dry cat food :rotfl:

Bulk buying needs space and organisation, if you haven't got the space I'd suggest finding some like minded people and buying collectively and splitting items between you. (ie, start a food co-op)

Passata I think Lidl is best I've found, esp when they do the bottle on a deal.

I like the Cirio one, 9 680g bottles for £2 when on offer at Costco

I think for now I'll get the oats which saves a lot already, and keep an eye out.

Considering buying the next Lidl tea offer,

We'll be taking advantage of there mature cheddar this weekend.

I do like a bargain esp on items we regularly buy.

It's not a bargain if you won't use it - no matter how good the price looks

Any thoughts on toilet roll? Best price is £0.23per roll from Lidl as far as I've found for something decent.

Cushelle around 25p per roll at Costo regular offer, but you're buying by the case 40-45 rolls at a time.

EagerLearner wrote: »

All those items as 28kg bags, or just the lentils? And where from please?

They're all available in 28 and 12.5kg bags and may be available in 5kg. Look at my original post - Suma Wholefood.
(I know a couple of shops local to me who will order items from Suma at a 5% premium if you can't get an account or meet the order requirements.)

Other thoughts.
Herbs and spices, we buy from an Indian greengrocer, typically I can buy 500g plus or the price of a small supermarket jar. There's a fruit and veg wholesaler nearby that is worth checking - but processing bulk veg and meats into meals takes a chunk of time and a lot of freezer space.

The Old Style board is worth following if this appeals to you. (And look up OAMC pages on the 'net to see what is doable)

We buy bulk in order to afford the quality we like, we don't buy just because its cheap - if you end up throwing it out, then it wasn't a bargain. We test new items by buying one or two before we'd consider buying bulk, and beware of recipe changes - we've been caught before by recipe changes in regular buys that render them inedible to us.

We tend to buy few ready to eat items - I prefer to cook from scratch and the freezers will have a mix of meals and building blocks - which can be combined in various ways without a lot of additional work to provide a variety of meals.

EagerLearner

Thanks Nuatha, that's a great deal on passata. We pay around £0.35 for 500g.
Have to see if we have a Costco but don't think so nearby.
Yes we only ever buy things we'll use, hence the above stock items. The cheese, tea and biscuits this weekend at Lidl we'll def use so I'll be there early.
I used to work with Infinity and Suma so I know the min orders pallets etc, would need to buy with someone but everyone we know just shops at supermarket.
I've got a larder and soon we'll have 2 freezers as I love batch cooking esp this time of year.
Herbs I always buy in large bags iiiif I use that herb or spice a lot, ie paprika, cinnamon, oregano. Taj is a shop we buy these from though I found another even closer couple weekends ago. Found a great eBay supplier too for smoked paprika.
If I find a good enough deal on laundry liquid or powder, toilet roll etc we also have an upstairs storage cupboard too so we use as much space as we can.

MrsStepford

On the storing and organising front, I bought a label dispenser and labels from Nisbets Next Day Catering Equipment online and write on use by date and any storage instructions eg use before 09/21 when opened refrigerate and use within 6 weeks. I store like dates together in my sideboard, now a Brexit stockpile.