[cleopatra]

does anyone know where you can buy food staples like flour, pasta , rice etc in bulk at a reasonable cost, please?
25kg sacks would be ideal.

[Plantoid]

See how near you are to the big Tesco superstores  or Costco
 
 Most of the really big Tesco superstores have a section where you can get supersize . so do the likes of Costco and Brookers wholesalers .
 
If your ex HMF you can get a discount Costco card .

[tizaala]

Macro used to be good for that sort of stuff, and they give temporary cards out .
Rice you can get from Indian and Chineese wholesalers in bigger towns.

[Bionic]

I have never used Costco and prefer Makro to Bookers but sometimes it isn't easy getting a card.
We now have a Bookers card because if you keep bees the BBKA (British Bee Keepers Association) made some arrangements with them a couple of years ago that if you showed your BBKA membership card you could get a Bookers card. Reasoning behind it is that bee keeprs use a large amount of sugar.
Sally

[HappyHippy]

Costco are fantastic 

I worked there for years as their optical section supervisor (yes, they do spex too  ) and still have a membership card - they sell everything ! They're possibly not the cheapest, but the quality they sell is great as is their refund/guarentee policy.

[MAK]

I guess that on line purchases come with high delievery costs so I would suggest a trip to a large city/town and the small ethnic shops. Asian, Chinese and Turkish communities have local corner shops and they all sell a large range of bulk produce. The Turkish shops in north London sell massive bags of rice,pulses,dried fruit and stuff that may be more familiar to those with a longer UK heritage. ( hope this is PC enough for everyone).

[lachlanandmarcus]

Altho Im not a fan of Tesco their larger (retail park) type stores do sell  sacks of rice etc - at ours they have basmati, long grain and thai fragrant rice in 10kg mini sacks.

[Fowgill Farm]

With Makro and Bookers i believe you need to be a business and have to produce either a compliment slip or headed paper, we have a Makro card and they are good for bulk purchases but expensive, its often better to buy smaller quantities in the supermarket equating to the same weight but works out cheaper so six and 2 threes. Smaller sealed packets store better too than opened big packs so unless you have secure bins to store stuff in watch out for invading critters.
mandy

[Sylvia]

I used to get mine through a health food shop. You could always ask a local one.

[Anke]

We buy 25kgs sacks of potatoes - available from one of the local petrol stations of all places! But cost has gone from 6 pounds per bag to 9!    But it is still a lot cheaper than Supermarket!
 
Some agri merchants do potatoes too, and of course over winter we also always have bags of (pony) carrots in the house....
 
I am not sure we would go through 25kgs of rice in less than a couple of years?
 

[Bionic]

Anke, do you find that your potatoes store ok and if so how do you store them?
thanks
Sally

[Anke]

Anke, do you find that your potatoes store ok and if so how do you store them?
thanks
Sally

Sally I make sure the bag gets properly closed every time I take some out and it lives in our vestibule - quite a cool part of the house (and no mice in there!). Sometimes the last few meals I have to discard a few more, but for a family of four the sack lasts about a months and a half - a lot of shepherd's pies and other mash recipes in our house...

[darkbrowneggs]

Goodness Foods used to be good for that, but I think they now have miniumum order which is quite high, it depends how much you would be using I suppose.

[cleopatra]

thanks guys
we used to get the paper sacks of tatties from the super market, about 7kg.. but the price went up from £2 to £7 in last 2 years.

[darkbrowneggs]

Lidl have some vegetables at a good price, the quality used to be very poor, but in mine they now stock locally grown potatoes which are both good and cheap