It’s no secret that Prices have gone up, and while you might try your best to cut back, you've gotta buy groceries. You might already know and love Costco and WinCo, but there are even more local options for discounted groceries in bulk. Here are our insider tips on where to score more food for less dough.

Produce

Several local grocery stores offer bulk discounts upon request, depending on the product. Call ahead to New Seasons Market for produce crates at wholesale price plus around 25 percent, or at Sheridan Fruit Co (409 SE MLK Jr. Blvd) for discounts of around 5–20 percent per case. 

The process is a little more involved at Rinella Produce (231 SE Alder St), owned and run by the Rinella family since 1914. You’ll be given a handwritten price sheet and toured around the no-frills brick warehouse. At one visit, 50 pounds of yellow onions was $14.99. Most produce is not organic, though items like potatoes, apples, and watermelon might be from the Northwest. You might find a selection of fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, cases of eggs, massive cans of goods, and sacks of rice and flour.

West Coast chain Grocery Outlet often has deals on frozen fruit—we’ve spotted four-pound bags of organic blueberries, strawberries, mango, and mixed fruit packs for around $10. 

Coffee

Café Zamora sources beans from the owner’s family farm in Guatemala. Its Zamora Love subscription, for east-side Portland locals only, is the best deal: you get eight pounds of coffee for $84, which can be sent to your house in batches. 

Pantry Staples

At small, independently owned, package-free grocery store Realm Refillery (2310 NE Broadway), shopping revolves entirely around bulk bins, so you can get as much or as little as you’d like. Recently, tricolor quinoa went for $3.99 per pound, easily beating out prices at Safeway and Fred Meyer. WinCo bulk bins can also be a gold mine of good deals: textured vegetable protein for around $3, and almonds as cheap as $4 per pound. 

The Bob’s Red Mill headquarters in Milwaukie, founded by 94-year-old Bob Moore, (5000 SE International Way) offers over 200 packaged products like flours, oatmeals, and baking mixes, many at excellent prices. Find loose items in Bob’s bulk section, where products go for even cheaper—we spotted bulk yellow polenta for about 30 percent less than the cost of its packaged version. Bakers swear by Bob’s 25-pound bags of flour ($18, or $37 for organic), and there are similar quantities of oats, granola, and various grains on offer. But the jaw-dropping markdowns happen at periodic sales, where prices fall another 20 percent per case. Call ahead and ask for sale dates.

For baked staples, the Dave’s Killer Bread outlet store down the street
from Bob’s (5209 SE International Way) sells frozen loaves of bread that are several days old for about $2.50 each, or just under $2 if you buy a dozen. You can stock your whole freezer for less than half the retail price. 

Meat & Fish

Local, sustainably farmed beef is inevitably pricey, but less so when buying shares of whole animals. The Meating Place (6585 NW Cornelius Pass Rd, Hillsboro) offers shares of Northwest-raised beef for $5.50 per pound of pretrimmed weight. To put that into perspective, a quarter beef (175 pounds) goes for around $962.50. After trimming, you’ll be left with about 105 pounds of different cuts like rib eye, tenderloin, pot roast, and ground beef for an average of $9.16 per pound—which is a fraction of the retail prices at the Meating Place and its competitors, where steak hovers above $20 per pound.

Whole-animal butcher shop Pasture PDX (1413 NE Alberta St) does curated boxes that include $125 worth of beef, pork, chicken, and sausage for $100. 

For salmon lovers, look to Portland-based Kenai-Red Fish Company. The father-daughter duo catch fish in Alaska, then distribute it to customers in the Pacific Northwest at around $19 per pound. Along with CSA-style shares, you can also gather friends to form a Get Wild Fish Club. Bulk orders of at least 100 pounds go for $16 per pound, which is 16 percent less than Kenai’s typical market price.