What Type of Food Storage Shelves to Buy

Our BabyStep 1 is to get your food storage shelves and general area ready. The reason we have shelves as step number 1 (after your basic emergency prep) is because when you have a room set up, building and adding to your food storage feels fun. It no longer becomes a task of figuring out where to put stuff. So whether its cheap and temporary shelves, or if you’re more experienced and run into extra money, some of the food rotation shelves can be really nice solutions.

When deciding on which shelves to put in your home, there are a lot of things to consider. We go into this is greater depth on our BabyStep 1 page. You may have space or budget issues to deal with, but there are options out there. Depending on what types of foods you are storing, rotating shelves can be a great thing to have. It’s also okay to start small with one shelf, and then add to it as you grow your food storage.

Shelving Options

Heavy Duty Food Storage Shelves:

You can get some decent shelves at Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart and other stores like that. You can also price check them on Amazon’s Shelf page to see if you are getting a good deal. These shelves vary in size, and pounds they will hold. If you will be storing heavier foods on them, invest in quality shelves if you can. These types of shelves are good for boxed foods, oils, honey, and a lot of miscellaneous cereals etc. Depending on how tall between shelves, they aren’t always good for cans, since you can only stack cans so high (unless you use a small rotating shelf with them).

Pantry Size Can Rotators:

If you store a lot of cans, there are a few different options for you. If you have space on your regular shelves, you can make or buy rotating shelf units that sit on your shelves and help organize your canned goods.

Make Your Own: Free plan for building cardboard rotating can racks. This is a cheap option but can be time intensive.

Plastic CanSolidators: The heavy-duty plastic Cansolidators from Thrive Life (formerly Shelf Reliance) have a ton of flexibility for can sizes and are very durable. As Thrive Life Consultants, we can get you these CanSolidators for a GREAT discount. Check out the sample savings:

Retail Price: $62.99
Consultant Wholesale Price: $40.99

Food Rotation Systems:

If it’s in the budget, these pantry organizing shelves are an absolute dream. They make rotating and keeping track of everything so easy. When deciding which type of Food Rotation System to buy, make sure you take into account the depth of the different shelves, and what kinds of cans they hold. The traditional shelves hold some small (soup), medium, and #10 cans all in one unit. You you can also get shelves that carry all small, or all #10 can sizes. Again, it becomes a matter of what kinds of foods you store more of.

As Thrive Life Consultants, we can get you these amazing Food Rotation Systems for a GREAT discount. For example the Variety Can System is $479.99 on Thrive’s retail site, but shop through our special links and it’s just $299.99! Can’t beat that savings!

There isn’t a “one size fits all” shelf out there. Some people recommend shelves based on what works great for them, but if you don’t eat the same types of foods as them, they may not work great for you. For example a rotating shelf with small soup size cans may be perfect for a family that eats a lot of canned goods, however for a family who rarely eats canned food, it may be useless. On the other hand, you may find that as you grow your food storage, you start eating differently so a shelf that may work now, may not work forever. When Julie moved into her new house, she moved her food storage shelves out to her garage to store her e-prep supplies and got new shelves that fit her room and foods better. Change is good, even with food storage shelves.