Need help managing your food storage?
There are lots of things going on that may have you thinking about managing your food storage, and stocking up on supplies. Managing your food storage may be more in the forefront of your mind than usual. We’re here to help by sharing the best food storage organization tricks and hacks to make things easier on you.
When organizing and storing your emergency food supply, you need to keep three objectives in mind:
1. Maintaining the longevity of your food.
2. Ability to easily access your food and supplies.
3. Ability to track and rotate through food and supplies.
These things may seem overwhelming but don’t worry. Listed below are where to store your food, how to store your food, and how to track rotating through your food.
Where to Store Your Food
You’ll want to store your food in a dry cool place. Most people store their emergency food in a designated storage room or in their laundry room. Although, if you’re living in an apartment or a small home you may not have that option. Don’t worry. You can still create an emergency food supply, but you may just need to get creative on where you store it.
Some unconventional places I would consider storing food would be: bedroom closets, underneath beds, or a coat closet. If these three places are already full, you may want to get rid of old articles of clothes to make room for your emergency food. Can you squeeze all of the winter coats that are hanging in the coat closet into the bedroom closets?
The top space in children’s closets is often underutilized. You may want to consider storing food there or even under your kid’s beds. When storing food in your kid’s rooms, just make sure it’s food that your child won’t be tempted to eat or play with.
You can also purchase a shoe organizer that hangs off the back of your closet door, freeing up floor-space in your own closet.
How to Store Your Food
Don’t store your rice, flour, sugar, and salt in the bags they’re packaged in. Instead, purchase 5 gallon buckets with lids and store your food in them. These sealed buckets are a good idea for multiple reasons. They make your food less attractive to bugs and mice, and they help keep moisture and dust out of your food. You can also stack them on top of each other easier than bags.
Just be sure to clearly label and date each of your buckets. I use a strip of painter’s tape and tape one to the top and side of each bucket. Then I write what food the bucket contains and the date it was purchased.
If you’re storing canned goods, you can purchase (or make) a canned goods storage rack. This will keep all of your canned food organized and in order.
How to Keep Track of Your Food Storage
It’s important to keep track of your food storage so that you know when you need to buy more of an item and you know when your food storage will expire.
The best way to do this is to make an itemized list of everything in your food storage. Make a note of when each item will expire. Then categorize everything alphabetically or into similar groups, whichever is easiest for you. Put this list on a clipboard and hang the clipboard near your food storage.
Next clip a blank piece of paper over the top of your list. Then whenever you take something from your food storage, write it down on the blank piece of paper. This tracks what food you’ve eaten so that you can replace it next time you go grocery shopping.
Need help knowing what items to buy for your food storage? Check out one of our most popular articles, “A 52 Week Guide for Building Your Food Storage.”
I hope these ideas have encouraged you to store and organize your emergency food supply so that it’s ready and available for you when you need it.
