I learned just recently that buying flour or rice by the sack can get me at least 5% discount. The only problem is the weight of the sack which is 50 kilos for rice. I cannot carry that sack so I have to pay someone to carry it for me. What we currently buy now is the 10-kilo sack which is easybto handle. With flour, we don't do much baking so it's not good to buy in bulk.
What is the shelf life of rice or flour? It may work out cheaper to get the larger sacks and pay for the delivery. I think the shelf life may be a couple of years or at least one year. If you use more rice and not so much flour, perhaps just get the larger quantity of rice and get a small kilo of flour. Most supermarkets are making deliveries now in the UK so I think it's a great idea to pay the small delivery charge and buy in bulk.
It is not good practice to hoard flour or rice for the sake of buying them in bulk especially when you are in business venture. It would resort to the scarcity of flour and rice and in return there would be less supply in the market and the price would also be affected. But for family use, you would be oblige to buy in bulk if there is imminent possibility of less supply of the said commodities. By the way, I have a small family. It is enough for me to buy a sack of rice. We don't need to purchase the flour.
Very true. I was also thinking to purchase rice in bulk quantities so that we can save some money it. As you rightly said its handling is quite difficult. Even though rice has a longer shelf life we have to store it well. Right now I also go for 10 kilo packets of rice which is convenient to use. Wheat flour also if we purchase in 10 kilo packets we get handsome discount here. I use Patanjali whole wheat flour which is not only cheap but also of good quality. Other brands are around 40-45% pricier than Patanjali brand.
I also do buy rice in bulk, nowadays at the grocery I buy at least 5kg of rice. I'm not in the habit of buying bits, I see that as time wastage having to go to the market virtually every day and again it could be disrespecting sometimes always seen you around. Yes when you buy in sack or bulk you get some discount, I enjoy around 3 to 5% discounts from my small bulk purchases. The sad experience sometimes I'd I try new brands of rice, sometimes do not appeal to my taste, would just have to manage the rice to finishing.
I think buying a large sack of rice is convinient in the long run even if one has to pay for delivery, well it is here since delivery is not so costly for groceries. I cook rice with almost all my meals and sometimes even replace tortilla with it and I tend to buy tortilla everyday, so I would safe more on tortilla too. I don't really use flour either so I would just buy a smaller sack like I usually do.
I buy 25kg packs of rice and store four such sacks. We are rice eaters so it works for just fine as the shelf life is much longer. For flour, I buy 25kg single packet as I consume it slower than rice but still I use it almost regularly. This is for personal use and not for reselling purpose. 25kgs packs are easier to handle, lift and pour/transfer for me rather than 50 kgs. It also gives a bigger cumulative discount.
I just finished a 5kg rice I bought which really did not meet my taste. I was trying to experiment by going for another brand and I regretted it. I am used to Basmati but this time around I tried another make, careful not to publish the name, it was so whitish and sticky after cook. This is one thing I fear when purchasing in bulk, product failure. If I can trust the item say, rice I wouldn't mind buying 100kg of it at a time.
