Grocery shopping at restaurant and institutional supply

I've mentioned before that I shop at a restaurant supply for many of our items. I thought you might like a better picture of what shopping at my local cash and carry looks like.

not a lot of parking slots, maybe 30 in total

The name of this particular chain is United Cash and Carry. There are others around the country, one other I know is Smart and Final. They specialize in large, institutional-size packaging. Imagine if you ran food service in a cafeteria, or you were planning a picnic for 200 people at your church, or you had a small bakery. This is the sort of place you'd shop.

this is what you get for a cart --
but actually, when you're maneuvering 50 pound sacks,
a flat bed is about the right cart for the job

And just so you know (so you don't look like the total dolt that I did as a first-timer), flatbed carts pull, and don't push (at least not in a straight line).

Most of the people I see shopping here have their carts loaded up with things like 40 pound boxes of chicken, a case of cabbage, 250 burger buns, 50 pound sacks of grains, etc. It's clear that they are shopping for some sort of business, or a very large gathering.

There are always a few carts like mine, maybe with a couple of 50 pound sacks of grains, or a case of butter. But there are telltale signs that I'm just shopping for a family -- like the 10 bananas, or single (normal-size) container of salt, or just a 2-gallon box of milk.

You can buy many items in packaging more consistent with traditional grocery stores, like a 1 gallon jug of oil.

Or, you can buy the econo-box of oil -- 35 pounds, or 4.375 gallons, for a savings of about $1 per gallon. Three years ago I did buy the 35 lb. box of oil. This was during another price spike in oil prices. I saved about $10 over buying the same amount of oil in a gallon jug. The only downside was dispensing the oil. I had to decant from the 35 lb box into a 1 gallon jug, to make it usable in a home kitchen.

Oats and cornmeal come in 25 lb. sacks. We eat a lot of granola, hot oatmeal cereal, and oatmeal cookies. A 25 pound sack lasts us(a family of 5) about 4 months.

There's no unit pricing in a wholesaler such as this one. You need to be sharp in math, or bring a calculator. I bring two calculators, my teen daughters, who need to keep their math minds sharp at all times! That $12.28, on the shelf edge, is the price for 25 pounds of cornmeal. That works out to about 49 cents per pound.

I buy white sugar in 50 pound sacks. Sugar prices have come down just a bit in the last 4 months. A 50 lb sack of sugar was about $26 the other day, down from a high of $28.50 last May. I no longer buy brown sugar in 50 lb. sacks. I found my family was "snacking" on brown sugar, and wanted to cut that habit short. Instead, for brown sugar, I buy molasses in a 1 gallon jug and mix my brown sugar as I need it.

I buy both whole wheat and white flour in 50 pound sacks, as well. I bake a lot. I can go through a 50 pounder in about 3 - 4 months. I paid $16.48 for a 50 lb sack of whole wheat flour in June. That was a sale price. Yes, they do have sales at our cash and carry. The price on flour worked out to about 33 cents per pound. Interesting to note, some of the white flour labeled for institutional or hotel use is unsifted. It is not as lumpy as white flour once was, but it still needs a bit of whisking in the bin to fluff it up for accurate measuring.

Frozen vegetables come in 5 pound bags. I can often do better price-wise with loss leader sales just before Thanksgiving for frozen vegetables. But when I need frozen veg, and they're not on sale, it's nice to know they are here at a price I can count on -- roughly 85 cents per pound.

"Oats, peas, beans and barley grow, oats peas, beans and barley grow. . ."
I can't help but sing that song every time I go down this aisle. Dried whole grains, like brown rice and barley, and legumes are sold in 25 and 50 pound sacks. I buy pintos, split peas, lentils and garbanzos this way. Legumes keep well for at least a year. I have heard of other folks having a hard time getting old beans to soften in cooking, but I've never had that problem. Perhaps buying from a wholesaler I get "fresher" beans, I don't know.

Canned tomato products are a deal here. Canned tomatoes can be frozen. So when I open a can for a batch of chili, I package the rest into meal-sized containers and freeze. I also tend to big batch cook, so when I make spaghetti sauce, I  MAKE  SPAGHETTI  SAUCE. I use an entire big can (about 105 oz.) of tomato paste, for a big batch of sauce.

You can buy peanut butter by the tub . . . (35 pounds)

or by the more convenient 4 to 5 pound jar/can. But if you don't need peanut butter right now, wait about 2 months to see what prices do. This year's peanut crop looks very good, and prices should come back down to a not so crazy level this fall. Seriously, we were in Albertson's this morning and peanut butter, a 16 oz. jar, was selling for almost $5. Now that is crazy!

The dairy walk-in is not such a deal, with the exception of butter and margarine. Butter, in a 30 lb. case, sells for about $1.85 lb., and margarine, also in a 30 lb case, sells for about 85 cents lb. I will say, in fall, with all the baking sales at a regular grocery store, I find margarine for less. But the rest of the year, I buy butter and margarine by the case. Both freeze well, and will stay fresh tasting for 6-8 months if frozen.

Why would I shop here? Well, overall it's cheaper on the staples that I use in large quantities. They save by not having the fancy displays or ambiance. There are no shopping bags. They do have some boxes that you can help yourself to, if you want. They will get something down from a shelf, if needed, and offer regularly to help me out to my car (and I see them doing this for other customers, so I know they're happy to help). The line can get long. There's no "Three's a crowd" policy here. If you hit the store at just the wrong time, there could be 6 - 8 carts ahead of you. But most of the time, my wait is short. There's no coffee bar to get a quick fix of caffeine. Very rarely are there any samples offered. It looks like a warehouse inside.

And because of all this, they save on their overhead, and pass that savings on to me, the customer.