There seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding the selection of food grade plastic buckets for food storage. The main concern is what is food-grade and what is not.
Unfortunately there is a wealth of contradictory information available on the web as well as from other sources.
There is no easy or sure way to tell in most cases, without contacting the manufacturer – unless the buckets are marked NSF, FDA, or USDA approved.
Buckets marked with a 2 are made of HDPE (high density polyethylene) plastic and in most cases are safe for food storage – but not all. If you aren’t sure, contact the manufacturer and ask.
Sometimes you can get these buckets for free from a local restaurant or deli, you never know until you ask. Just be sure the buckets only held food products – not paint, chemicals or other things that could make you sick.
Most of the time these buckets held icing, pickles or similar foods, the hard part is getting rid of smells left over from the original contents.
If all else fails you can find them here
. Hope this helps. Where do you find your food storage buckets?
. Hope this helps. Where do you find your food storage buckets?
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{ 24 comments }
I get my buckets from the local clubs,Moose,Eagles,Legion Halls. They are always free and they are thrilled to hear I'm using them for preparing,especially the Legions. It doesn't hurt to wear your American flag hat when you go to ask. I scrub them out with baking soda & air them out in the sun light. I'm not that worried about the smell,everything I put in the buckets is vacuum packed.
Thank you for the great information! ;) As always, another very helpful post.
We frequent Wal-Mart's bakery and ask for their old food grade buckets – as you mentioned they usually did contain something like frosting.
We then purchase "gamma" lids (resealable screw lids) and Mylar bags. We put our food goods in bags with O2 packets and then seal them with the gamma lids. Thus, the frosting smell doesn't really impact anything. We think we've saved about $60 so far with this method.
M.D. have you seen the review of your ebook by some guy calling himself GunGeek? What a stupid jerk.
One of the stupidest things he said in his "review" was that your information to boil water for 5 min before drinking (his recommendation 1 min) would kill people. What is this guy for real? What a dumb-ass.
Nothing but an obvious attempt on his part to get readers to his blog by causing controversy within the survival community. What a jerk.
We get our buckets from the cake dept. of our local grocery. Thay save several sizes for me. I like the different sizes for different food stuffs. This year I gave my married kids 2 1/2 gal. buckets with food. Oatmeal, beans, rice and popcorn to name a few. I got funny looks, strained Thank you's but they are all already using the food.
I put surprises in the buckets too, like crochet dish cloths, new aprons, and hand made soap.
For new buckets goto http://www.beprepared.com. 14 buckets from Amazon = $11.81 per bucket (with shipping and handeling). 14 from beprepared.com = 6.14 per bucket (with shipping and handeling). Not affiliated, just a satisfied custumer.
As I understand it, a lot of what makes a bucket safe for food storage is what mold release agent the mfr. used when the bucket was produced. Of course, the usual precaution of what was in the bucket prior to you using it should be taken into consideration as well.
I am a painting contractor and was recently able to get some brand new, never used #2 buckets from a paint supplier for next to nothing. These buckets are grey in color. Since I was about to put a significant dollar amount of food preps in them I decided to make sure they were food grade. I googled the manf. name from the bottom of the bucket and called the folks up. They were very nice and seemed to understand the nature of my concern without saying so. They transfered me to someone in the company with expertise. He told me they had never tried to get their buckets certified as food grade since that was not their intended market. He went on to say however, that he knew that everything in the bucket except the grey colorant was food grade and that he knew there was nothing in the colorant that would be harmful. I asked specifically about metals or solvents in the colorant and he assured me it was all safe. I was actually surprised that they agreed to talk to me. In most cases you would expect a manf., not knowing who they were talking to, to "lawyer up" on you thinking it was a "trick question" of some sort. All I said to them was that I intended to store some stuff long term in the buckets and wanted to make sure they were safe. Without saying so, each of the three folks I talked to seemed to know precisely what I was up to and seemed to understand.
I get mine from the deli of the local grocery store. They charge $1 a bucket w/lid and sometimes have two sizes. The lids are nicer with a rubber gasket (?) inside the groove.
Our local Walmarts no longer give or sell their empty frosting buckets. One manager claims they are returned to be reused, my Dad works in another state and says it's part of the new policy to never give away anything ever. I suspect a combination of the two – two many blogs suggesting Walmart for free frosting buckets & the new generation sitting on the board.
If food is being put into a mylar bag would the release agent matter?
Wal Marts policy is to never ever GIVE anything away. If they toss anything they damage it first. Cut the sleves off of coats. Pour dyes into clothing and such.
I try not to shop there when possible.
I get my food grade buckets and lids directly from the factory. (Free) A friend of our works for a company that produces plastic buckets of all types and sizes and whenever we need them he brings them home. We send him baked goods and eggs. So far they are working out very well. I have over 30, 6 gallon buckets storing flour alone. Recently we opened one bucket that has been storing flour for almost 4 years and the product is just fine. Flour, beans, sugar, rice, and several dry mixes are being stored with no storage costs.
Did you use just the bucket by itself, or mylar bags and
h2o bags? thanks dave
Here locally we have a "DuLux" brand paint store and they have the heavy gray 90 mil paint buckets with rubber gasketed lid, tamper seal, and a 2" screw off cap for $5 each. So far I have bought 30 of them. I looked on the bottom of the bucket, saw the mannufacturer in California, and called and verified that they were food grade.
I modified one of the screw off caps to accept a Northern Tool hand pump so that the buckets can also be used for water storage … just move the pump/cap assembly from bucket to bucket.
Instead of the large single mylar bag, I prefer not having to open up a 25 pound bag of something, so I use two of the 1-1/2 gallon mylar bags (from USA Emergency) each typically with two 500cc O2 absorbers. Each bag holds 12-1/2 lbs and there is room left over on top of them for small mylar bags of of other stuff like Hersheys Cocoa, etc.
Rick in SC (rabarber at comcast dot net)
Anonymous 8:36 PM,
Can't figure out what boiling water has to do with plastic buckets but you are correct boiling for one minute will sufficiently purify for drinking.
I recommend five minutes of boiling in my ebook for a couple reasons.
1. I have no way of knowing at what elevation a reader might be located during the purification process. The general rule is to add one minute of boil time for each 1,000 rise in elevation. So boiling for 5 minutes acts as a safety-net in this regard.
2. You need to be sure the water is actually boiling. You need a rolling boil with big bubbles coming up to the top that shakes the pan. A few very tiny bubbles on the bottom of the pan is not boiling boiling. Again I recommend boiling for five minutes as a safety-net and not as a rule.
M.D. you can also find them at Lehman's http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Juice_and_Beverage_Making___4_Gallon_Plastic_Bucket_with_Lid___plasticBucket?Args=
They are 4 gallons in size, but the price is reasonable. Just thought I would mention it.
"If a bucket says HDPE on it, it is food grade." – FALSE.
All plastic manufacture is like making a chocolate cake. There are many different recipies, yet all are chocolate cake. In order to be food grade, it cannot have any component of it's manufacture which will leach into or react with the material (food) it comes into contact with. In most cases it is the lubricant, binder or filler used in the plastic "recipe" that is the problem.
"Most companies only make 1 type of bucket and then sell it to different companies for different uses." – PARTIALLY TRUE
A plastic company that makes 1 type of bucket is like an ice cream maker that only sells one flavor. If a generic 5 gallon bucket is made, the manuacturer might make a million of them in a single production run. They might all be food grade plastic. Customers who do not necessarily need a food grade bucket might use this one due to volume & pricing. Also, the cost of manufacturing a food grade bucket might not be much more than a non-food grade bucket. Therefore, it may be cheaper to make only food grade buckets rather than make a material and/or tooling changeover on the production line.
You must also consider that the manuacturer on the bottom might not be the real manufacturer. It may be manufactured for them by another company. That company might be in China and we all know how honest Chinese companies are… melamine in milk, toxins in heparin…
If you place your food into sealed, food grade mylar bags, you do not need to be too concerned that your containers are food grade. Mylar should be a good enough primary barrier to any leachables in the plastic of a non-food grade plastic bucket.
I deal with these kind of manufacturers in the Pharmaceutical industry which has much more stringent requirements than the food industry.
FlatSix, you are absolutely correct!
I have been in plastic molding and medical product design my entire career. I can buy industrial grade HDPE resin or FDA compliant or USP Class VI (pharmceutical grade). You should know your supplier and have them show or e-mail you a certification from the molder proving they are using FDA resin and following molding procedures within FDA Compliance.
Today with China you can trust nothing.
I have been using buckets to store food for almost thirty years and have gotten them from resalers, grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries etc. Over the years the quality of the plastic has changed and so has the information about what to look for. We would all like an economical alternative to plastic but that has not appeared yet.
One caution that has not been discused is rodents. Rodents can eat through plastic buckets especially if there is a nest nearby. Rodents must chew in order to keep their teeth filed down and finding food makes chewing even more attractive. I had a large quantity of buckets stored and unbeknown to me a rat nest appeared in between the rows out of sight. They chewed through buckets that had food and some that did not have edible contents like pots and pans. They just plain chewed. So anyone that thinks that food is perfectly safe in buckets is misinformed. My blog can be checked for pictures of some of the holey buckets.
We'll be trying out the local grocer option – using buckets mostly for wheat, etc, I have to confess that it does kill me to spend $7 or $8 per bucket on a new bucket. It's plastic for heavens sake.
Regarding: Rats chewing plastic food buckets
Mothballs work wonders for keeping rodents away. We use them to winterize our travel trailer, sheds, golfcart and ATVs. Up at our retreat, it's widely accepted that you'll have a field mouse problem in the winter if you don't bomb the place with mothballs.
The stink from mothballs will keep me away too. Therefore, you might not want to use this method in your living quarters. It works best in small, confined spaces that are not generally accessed by your family. At home I use them in my addition crawlspace, which I am using like a root cellar.
I use cleaned out 2-liter bottles for rice, beans, sugar, flour, wheat, etc. Just keep them in a dark place because they are clear and light will degrade some foods. I like that they are not too big, so if you get a bug problem in one, for example, it won't ruin 5 gallons of food.
Christine A
You said there was a manufacturer of food grade buckets in California. Could you please give me the address and phone number.
Thank you,
Gary Randolph
If you are going to put food in Mylar bags does it mater if the plastic buckets are food grade or not?
Thanks
1) If I am useing ziplock mylar bags inside the buckets, do I need to be concerned about whether or not they are “food grade?”
2) The buckets sold at Lowe’s (for $2.50/ea) say HDPE on the bottom. Does that mean they are food grade?
3) What if the buckets sat number “2″?
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