Thanks to your recommendation, I ordered a Planetbox for my 4-year-old. I requested on the webform that they not use extra plastic to package it. I got my wish! The item came plain (in its carrying case) in the priority mail cardboard box. My son hasn’t used it yet, but it looks like it will be a great product for us.

I am looking for stainless steel canisters with stainless steel lids. Does anyone know where these would available online or a store?

My 10yo son sometimes reads stuff over my shoulder–and since he saw your pictures of the Graze bags, he started making me check your blog every hour (which seems a bit obsessive even for your lovely blog) to see if we won. Then when he saw the Planet box, he got even more excited. Since my son is homeschooled, the food carriers would mostly be for “Papa” to take to work–but since son has been so excited about them, I may have to order one of them for a Hanukkah present for him!

I’ve been feeling guilty about buying bulk (which I do) because I basically use plastic containers to store and carry the food. Because of this I’ve been saving up glass jars in order to keep the food in the fridge, but haven’t solved the transportation problem, but I do think that maybe making my own cloth bags as suggested here will help.

The lunchbox looks cool, but unfortunately for work I have to go with a pyrex contain with what I believe is a silicone lid since I tend to take leftovers to reheat.

Making cloth bags to carry my fruit and veggies to work is now at the top of my list though!

I think the most important part of shopping in bulk for me is having a place to put it. I invested in some STRONG shelves, since bulk food can be heavy, and I store it all in glass half-gallon jars. What a disaster it would be if all my precious food came crashing down and got mixed up with broken glass!

I save my glass juice bottles and put my bulk items in them. Each is labelled with a similar label, so they look really nice in the pantry. Whenever one gets low, I simply make a note of it, and get more @ our bulk section next time I’m at the grocery. As my glass bottle collection increases, so does the amount of bulk items I can buy.

I have gotten in the habit of purchasing bulk at the local foods market using the same bags each time. I really like the idea of using mason jars though – and I have so many of them!

I love, love, love this lunch box!

We don’t do a lot of bulk buying because there are only 3 of us and we don’t have a ton of storage space, BUT we do use reusable bags when we go to the farmers market or grocery store.

it is kind of a pain, but i usually take our home containers for the bulk items to the store, tare the weight and fill them on site. a lot of people at my coop bring cardboard boxes of all their various containers, to help carry them if you are buying a lot of items.

I went to buy nuts for holiday baking at a bulk barn store on saturday. I brought my own plastic bags to reuse because I know they won’t weigh containers there. I was told at the cash not to do that again, their stores do not allow for customers to reuse bags. I think that I could probably get away with reusing their own plastic bags but that would bring an entire new set of plastic bags into the house. We buy a lot of our flour in bulk and we reuse the same plastic bags over and over, dumping into large glass jars at home.
So, for now I am stuck buying nuts prepackaged. The only nearby store doesn’t have nuts in bulk because of possible cross contamination issues.
While the small food coop I belong to bags all its bulk products in plastic bags, I can go to the store and use my own containers if I go after hours when it isn’t busy.

Oh, I buy spices in bulk. I have nice spice jars (from the Spice House in Chicago), and I just bring them back to get refilled. This keeps my spices looking all uniform and pretty, and keeps some trash out of the landfill!

by the way, Planetbox is awesome. Wish I was a kid going to school. I am trying to think of kids that I want to get this for Christmas. Thank you for being so smart and following through on an idea Caroline.

I buy the old polyester scarves in thrift stores that ladies no longer wear on their curls. They tend to be colorful yet see through and mesh like. Fold them in have and sew up the sides. Add a draw string at the top. Now I have recycled, kept plastic out of a land fill and have something to talk to people at the store about. I don’t have bulk so I use these to replace the produce bags at the store. Also, you can wash and rinse right in the bag when you get home, hang to dry.

Buying in bulk is easiest through a co-op – I love that my 25-lb bag of oats was packaged in paper, not plastic! Although a lot of the other bags are plastic, at least there are fewer of them, and I do my darndest to reuse them.

I reuse gallon ziploc bags and write the bulk code on the bag. I transfer them to glass jars at home. I have the bulk codes on them for the next time i shop. Those lunchboxes look like the answer to my lunch issues. Kids would love to eat from them.

I like to take a string bag instead of a canvas bag to pack all the “bulky” bags in, as it expands and expands at the checkout. I also buy produce for canning in bulk at local farms and orchards. These folks usually have “seconds” or “drops” in bushel baskets or crates for a very good price, and they are happy to help heave the basket into the car. So think beyond oatmeal and rice for bulk purchasing!

I have found that whole foods makes it super easy to buy in bulk. However, here in NJ bulk hasn’t caught on like it has in Cali. Our options are extremely limited. The best solution I have found is to keep muslin bags in my car so I don’t have to remember to bring them with me when I shop.

I have a GREAT coop in my town. They really love when people bring their own bag/ containers and even give a discount for this! I have some home made bags that I picked up from a stall at our farmer’s market two summers ago. I use jars that can’t be re-purposed for canning to hold my bulk items and just write on the jar what the contents are and when they were purchased.

I’m so excited! This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for! I kept saying how much I wished Laptop Lunches (which is what I send with my kids every day) would make a stainless steel version. I spent hours and hours and hours searching the web for something comparable (because I love the LL system) that came in stainless. Oh, I really really really want to win this one!

I use cloth bags for things like pasta, but mostly I reuse jars, especially large apple sauce jars. I then store the food in them. (I always feel that I can’t store the food in the bags because they get stale or soft.) Berkeley Bowl (large grocery store in Berkeley) and the Berkeley Natural Grocery will pre-weigh containers, which is nice. For some reason, though, they won’t pre-weigh for the olive bar, so I’ve been buying jars. It’s too bad because they’re mainly for my son, so we can’t always finish them before they go bad.
I tried sending his lunch to preschool in a metal tiffin, but the teacher thought it was too complicated and took up too much room. He’s been using Lunchbots this year, which I love, but he can’t open it himself. It would be great to have something bigger than a Lunchbot that he can actually open. Thanks for hosting the give-away!

We just moved to a rural area with no bulk option for 50 miles…but in two weeks our new buying club will receive its first shipment! One member offered to sew bags with some cloth she already has on hand. I would re-use the plastic bags at our old co-op for bulk, but they would only last a few trips. Getting totally rid of plastic bags is my 2010 resolution.

What a fantastic product! I hope to be returning to grad school next autumn and I’d love to have this to take for lunches. I have washable reusable cloth bags that I take to the bulk bins. When I get home, I transfer my purchases to repurposed glass jars. All grains, nuts, and flours (almost everything except legumes, really) then go into the refrigerator to extend their shelf life and protect against infestation.

My friend and I sewed up some cotton muslin produce/bulk bags. I bring them with me whenever I go shopping. There are few places to buy bulk food right now, and I can’t really afford to buy the foods they offer (a small natural food store selling organics, and Whole Foods), so I try instead to buy things packaged in paper/paperboard.

I have a few repurposed plastic containers that I reuse over and over. I take them with me to the grocery store, fill them with bulk food items, and immediately move the food to mason jars or other non-plastic storage when I get home. Then I just wash the plastic container and put it back in my reusable grocery bags which I keep in my car. (That way, I am never without both reusable bags and bulk food storage.)

We used to buy from bulk food bins often when we lived in Washington state. The store we purchased from gave a discount for bringing your own bags, so we had motivation to remember them.

However, we haven’t found a bulk food store in Western KY (other than Sam’s Club).

Tip: Plan out a place where you’re going to store your purchase before you go to the store.

I have amassed quite a collection of glass storage (pyrex-like ones, and also canisters), and I always divide my bulk stuff up once I get home, unless they’re freezable. In that case, I always do the “flash freezing” method, and freeze them on a cookie sheet and then dump them in a storage container in the freezer, so I can take them out individually at my leisure. Easy-peasy!

Know how to store things! I had issues with buying oils and nut butters in bulk, and then forgetting to refrigerate them. Of course, they then went rancid and I really didn’t save any resources at all. My husband I and also like to keep bulk nuts and oilier grains chilled so they keep longer.

This is a great little invention by the way! Even if I don’t win I fully intend to buy one when I have a few spare pennies lying around. =P

The stores in my rural area don’t have bulk bins, so instead of buying in bulk I buy things with glass or paper packaging, even though this usually means buying less of it at one time and paying more. Your boxes look wicked cool!

I am very new to “going green” so I honestly don’t have any tips for buying in bulk. My only tip would be to read great blogs like Beth Terry to get tips. I find that I am often not even aware of things that I do that have a negative effect so I am trying to become aware of those things.

I would love to win the PlanetBox for my daughter! Her favorite t-shirt right now says “Be kind to my Planet” It would be perfect for her.

I try to keep both bulk bags and other non-plastic storage containers in my car. Since I get most of my daily food from farmers markets I rarely plan trips to the grocery store but instead end up going if I happen to be passing by. So this way I have containers with me when I happen to think to stop at the store.

Unfortunately the area I live isn’t very bulk food friendly. What I do try to do is minimize the amount of plastic packaging a I buy. I don’t get individually wrapped stuff anymore and if there’s a non-plastic version I try to get it.

I live with my parents so I don’t necessarily have the biggest voice when shopping. My mom got the message though when I held up the individually wrapped chicken breast she bought and declared them “MASS OF PLASTIC WASTE”.

These are super cool! I pack lunch for work one day a week, and I use my home glassware for transport. Though I have kids, they are homeschooled so school lunches aren’t an issue. On field trip or class days, we use our regular house goods and a cooler I’ve had for a long time.

My favorite local store carries bulk but doesn’t have scales to tare my own containers. I use mason jars in assorted sizes for storage.

A the regular grocery store – I buy my fruits and vegis without using the plastic bag they provide – strait into the cart for me – and then home into reuseable containers

I cannot purchase groceries from bulk bins due to my son’s food allergies. Cross contamination from items that contain nuts, dairy, etc. is literally life threatening to him. In order for us (and the many other families affected by food allergies, most of whom shop in natural food stores to find specialty products) bulk items would need to be dispensed from sealed packages from the manufacturer, which could not have the usual scoops stuck into them. I would love to see this.

My family just moved recently, and when I noticed that I had ran out of honey in our ancient bear-shaped container, I also noticed a sign for a local honey farm not even a mile away. They filled my larger jar, so not only am I getting a better price for buying bulk, I’m buying local! I wish I had more options like that around here, but in the middle of nowhere the grocery stores aren’t that fancy.

No bulk around here…at least not that I’ve found. I buy unpackaged fresh fruits and veggies from farmer markets but just so bag-less. Instead, I’ll share my cafeteria trick :) I usually pack my lunch but I keep a tiffin and silverware at the office. When I end up buying, I take it with me and can use the containers for hot food or the salad bar.

I don’t do much bulk buying, but when I do, I use muslin bags that I sewed a sleeve on with a plastic insert so I can stick the label in showing the price/code (like you have for id cards). I repurposed the plastic from something else and it doesn’t actually touch the food, so I’m okay with it, but it isn’t necessary. I also store all my food in glass jars in the pantry. I love the way all the jars look lined up.

My tip actually came from a friend of mine: when washing cloth produce bags, turn them inside out. That way, anything clinging to the sides and bottom (like rice bits for flecks of walnut) will come out in the wash.

The lunch box looks really cool!

I have reused plastic bags from bulk bins before; now I use reusable bags, tho’ I am ashamed to say they are nylon & thus not plastic-free. I have mesh bags that I use for produce (or I could use them for, say, unshelled nuts). I could try cotton bags I suppose!

Sometimes when I go to a store w/bulk bins that I’ve not shopped in before I get a little paranoid that I’ll look like a shoplifter, what w/digging in my bag to get out the reusable bags & then filling them up & them not looking anything like the bags in the store. So I tend to ask someone working there (assuming they’re not swamped w/other customers) if it’s okay to use my own bags & they are usually thrilled.

The PlanetBox looks amazing!!!

I miss buying in bulk! We don’t have this option in my neighborhood. When I lived in a small college town, I was part of a food coop and loved being able to do this. I just reused containers and it was easy. Happy bulk shopping!

Wow! this looks so cool for lunches!!! I hope I win so I can try it.

To make it easier for me to buy in bulk?

I save glass jars from food that I eat and use plastic Chinese takeout containers for storing the food. I bring the containers to the store.

I write the tare on the bottom of the container using a Sharpie. I only need to weigh it once! The container can go through the dishwasher and the tare stays on it (at least for glass). For things that I purchase a lot and keep on hand, I also write the 4 digit product code (or for another store, the price) on the top of the container. Now I don’t have to keep remembering a bunch of codes/prices and the cashier doesn’t have to look it up.

This looks awesome!

I don’t have a bulk food option, and our farmer’s market shuts down at the end of summer, so it’s hard sometimes to avoid the plastic!

Sometimes I will end up buying things in plastic like yogurts and milk that are marked down because I know that at least if I buy them, the containers will be reused/recycled properly. If I didn’t, when the “sell by” date has passed, they would just be thrown in the landfill full of wasted food. I know it means that I am eating some food/drink out of plastic, but at least it is keeping it out of the landfill!

Since becoming a member of Beth Terry, I have been changing over from about 50% use of plastic (I’ve always hated the temporary life of plastic) to completely eliminating plastic from my life. I recently bought some scrap cotton fabric at a thrift store, and a mending/hemming sewing machine (it’s small and has about 5 different stitches). I’m making my own bags! It’s new for me to shop without plastic bags, but bulk has always been my first choice. It’s cheaper, and I’m also very frugal. Hopefully my use of cloth will educate and not irritate here in my redneck rural town. ;)

Well, there aren’t any bulk stores in my town, but once my fiance and I move to a house, our plan is to build our food stores month-by-month. We’ll buy a different kind of bean, grain, flour, or other staple every month (along with non-plastic bins to hold them) until we have a respectable pantry full of stored foods that will last us in case of an emergency (losing a job, natural disaster, etc).

While no store around me sells in bulk (yet!), I would definitely whip up a few organic cotton bags to put purchased bulk products in.

I adore the PlanetBox! How lovely! I have a stainless steel adoration thing going!

At my coop during the last recession that almost killed us c 1995, we started to pack the more costly bulk items like organically grown nuts in plastic bags in the store because the bulk bins kept getting moths and the foods needed to be sold at cost or thrown away. We also bag freezer items like perogis, berries, peas, corn and beans. I do remember fondly the days of the galvanized garbage cans filled with goodies like demerara sugar – I LOVED scraping the bottom of that barrel!

Now partly at my insistence we are looking at alternatives. But the sorts of solutions we need cost money, and we are barely hanging on now. There’s gravity dispensors for most bulk items like coffees, oatmeal, rices, flour, dried peas and beans etc. We got those dispensors cheap or free from other coops that spent money on equipment and bins, then went under, sadly.

We sell nut butters, yeast, tofu, miso, bagels, pasta and cleaning supplies in bulk. We have milk, kefir and cream in glass bottles with deposits, and eggs in bulk. So, boy am I lucky to have Karma Coop to help me spare the planet of more plastic!

Of course, I reuse the plastic bags I do end up with. As soon as I pour the food into my designated mason jar at home, I twist tie the bag up again and it goes into the Karma Coop bag that hangs on the back of my kitchen door. The Karma bags go to the coop and all the clean bags and containers go into the communal reuse bin next to the weight scale. Rarely does any one at Karma buy a plastic bag or container, but if they do, it costs them $.03 to $.30.

Now that our city has mandated that store charge $.05 minimum for plastic shopping bags, it’s difficult to find one at the coop, but most of us have been doing the reusable bag thing for decades. You can buy Karma Coop burlap bags at the cash – they are made by Hey Jute http://www.heyjute.com and not lined with plastic.

So the bag on the back of my kitchen door is my solution. If I need a bag, I just go there, and if I forget my bag when I go to Karma Coop, there’s always the communal bin, and my bicycle panniers…

Love & RRRevolution, Tracey

The best way to get yourself to buy bulk is to write a list of the things you need as they get used up and bring it to the store with you. Make the bulk section your 1st visit so that you are not tempted with the convienence of the packaged products!

My biggest obstacle to using reusable bags for bulk (and produce) is having them with me. The best tip I can offer is to transfer your bulk purchases to storage containers as soon as you get home (I use thoroughly-cleaned spaghetti sauce jars) and then get those bulk bags back in the trunk of the car (or wherever you keep your shopping stuff if you use alternative transportation). Over the years, a few times I’ve ended up using a plastic bag and twist tie from the store, and then I make an effort to reuse that bag (and twist tie!) over and over.

Thanks for this opportunity; the PlanetBox looks awesome! – Rachel

I try not to use the plastic ties with the bags whenever I’m buying food.

I have to have two sets of bags—-one set is in my purse for when I run to the store. The other set is at home in the kitchen. When I fill up the first set at the store and bring them home—as I am putting them away in the cupboards, I put the “home” set (2nd) set in my purse so that I have a set with me at all times and I don’t have to try to remember to bring my bags! If I make it as fool-proof as possible—I can’t help but succeed!

~Just Ducky