Storing flour in bulk comes down to five habits. Keep it off the floor: the FDA Food Code, which health departments adopt in their own versions, wants food stored at least 6 inches up, on racks, or on dollies and pallets made for moving it. Keep it clean, dry and covered, away from splash and dust, and never in a restroom, locker room or under a drain line. Label it: once flour leaves its bag for a bin, the bin carries the name of the flour, and it helps to write the mill lot and date too. Use the oldest lot first, which means new bags go behind or under the old ones, not in front. And don't buy more than you'll use while it's at its best: white flour keeps for months in a cool, dry room, but whole wheat and rye go stale and rancid sooner, because they keep the oily germ, so a pallet bought for the discount can outlast its quality. Inspect deliveries and the dry store for pests on a schedule. In the example below, a wholesale bakery sets how much of each flour to keep and finds one lot past its date. Below are the habits, the rules, the example, and a free planner.
The short version
- Off the floor: at least 6 inches up, on racks, or on dollies and pallets.
- Clean, dry, covered; never in restrooms, locker rooms or under drain lines.
- Flour moved into a bin gets a label with its name; add the mill lot and date.
- New bags behind or under old ones; oldest lot first.
- Whole wheat and rye go off sooner than white; buy them in smaller amounts.
- Check deliveries and the dry store for pests.
- TaroStack keeps each delivery as a lot and picks the earliest date first. More below.
The habits
| Habit | How |
|---|---|
| Off the floor | Wire racks, or pallets and dollies built for food, so you can clean under them |
| Dry and covered | Bags closed or bins lidded; nothing stored under pipes or near the dish sink |
| Labeled | Each bin labeled with the flour's name, and the lot and date it came from |
| Oldest first | New deliveries behind or below; the oldest lot is the next one opened |
| Right amount | No more than you'll use within your own keep-by time for that flour |
| Pests | Look at each delivery before it goes on the rack; check corners and under racks weekly |
How oldest-first works across a whole store is in stock rotation methods, and the difference between first in and first expired in FIFO and FEFO in food.
The rules
| Rule | Food Code 2022 |
|---|---|
| Where | Clean, dry, not exposed to splash, dust or other contamination (3-305.11) |
| How high | At least 6 inches above the floor; packaged food may sit lower on case lot handling equipment such as dollies and pallets (3-305.11) |
| Not here | Locker rooms, toilet rooms, dressing rooms, garbage rooms, mechanical rooms, under sewer lines that aren't shielded (3-305.12) |
| Labels | Working containers of flour, sugar, salt, spices and the like labeled with the food's common name (3-302.12) |
| Pests | Incoming shipments and the premises inspected routinely (6-501.111) |
All from the FDA Food Code 2022, as your state adopts it. This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: a wholesale bakery's dry store
Flint Hills Bakery, the made-up wholesale bakery in Topeka, Kansas, I use in these examples, uses four flours in 50-pound bags and set its own keep-by times: 26 weeks for bread and cake flour, 12 for dark rye, 8 for whole wheat.
| Flour | Bags a week | Bought at a time | Most on hand | Weeks it lasts | Within keep-by? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 32 | 40 | 48 | 1.5 | Yes |
| Whole wheat | 6 | 40, a pallet | 44 | 7.3 | Yes, barely |
| Dark rye | 2 | 10 | 12 | 6.0 | Yes |
| Cake flour | 3 | 10 | 12 | 4.0 | Yes |
The whole wheat pallet is the risky one: 7.3 weeks against an 8-week keep-by leaves no room for a slow month, and this month nine bags of the September lot are still on the rack behind a new pallet. They go to the front and get used this week. The lots sheet also turned up one bag of dark rye received in July, past its 12-week keep-by; it's thrown out, and rye drops to 10 bags at a time. How the bakery counts its racks is in stock card template.
Get the planner
Download the bulk flour storage planner. Two sheets: the plan, with each flour's bags used a week, bags bought at a time, safety bags, your keep-by policy and bags a rack spot, and the most on hand, the weeks it lasts, whether that's within policy and the rack spots needed filling in; and the lots, with each lot's received date and bags left, and its keep-by date and use first, OK or past keep-by. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The lots sheet is right the day you fill it in. By Thursday three bags of the old whole wheat have gone into dough and two of the new pallet by mistake, and only a count will say which.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each flour delivery as a lot and uses the earliest date first.
Each delivery a lot. Flour is received with the mill's lot and a best-before date, your keep-by, so each lot carries its date.
Earliest date first, by default. Batches take flour from the lot with the earliest date first, and a forecast shows which lots will reach their date before they're used, so the whole wheat problem shows up before the last bag.
Counts and write-offs. A count on a phone, even offline, checks the rack, and the bag of rye thrown out goes off as an adjustment with its reason, expired, reported by reason and item.
| The job | Clipboard | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which lot to open next | Read the bags | Earliest date first |
| Flour that will go past its date | Found at the back | Expiry forecast |
| What a batch used | Not recorded | Lots on the batch |
| Flour thrown out | Not written down | An adjustment, with its reason |
Receiving, lots, the expiry forecast, batches and counts are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.