Make Your Pantry Resemble a Grocery Store
Make Your Pantry Resemble a Grocery Store.
Grocery stores are clean and organized. They have to be, in order for their customers to be able to find what they need.
Use their model to create a little grocery store within your home – YOUR PANTRY!
Organizing a pantry to resemble a mini grocery store can save you time, energy, and money. Click To TweetEverything has its place. This couldn’t be more true than in your own panty. Lets start following the basic principles the grocery chains use. These tips may help you find things quickly and easily in your own pantry.
- Categorize food into groups, such as baking goods, paper products, breakfast items, pasta and rice, bread, and canned goods.
- Place frequently used products at eye level. Make it as easy as possible to find what you need most often.
- Place lighter-weight items, like paper towels, chips, and crackers on the top shelves, so there is no danger of injury if something should fall.
- The tallest products are in the back, so you can see as much as possible. If you can’t see it, it’s the same as not having it.
- Further, organize categories of items for better efficiency. Canned goods can be sorted into soups, fruit, and tomato products.
- Contain bagged items like spice packets, pasta, rice, and beans inside bins or empty them into jars, so things don’t spill and create a mess and/or more chaos.
Organizing a pantry to resemble a mini grocery store can save you time, energy, and money. Try it!
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Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
I love these ideas, though my limited cupboard space doesn’t allow me to designate specific areas for canned goods, pasta, etc. I’ve adapted though, and have managed to arrange things in a way that I don’t lose sight of opened packages that need to be used up or buy products I don’t need.
With limited space it’s better not to over buy, great point Janet.
I love this! I thought about and have organized many pantries. However, I never consciously considered how that relates to grocery store organization. This makes so much sense.
Along those lines, editing out expired food items is another aspect of organizing. This aligns with your concept. In the store, as new items are added to a shelf, not only do they bring the older products forward and put the newer ones behind. They also remove any that have expired.
Great observation Linda, thank you.
This makes so much sense! We know where to look for things when we go to the grocery store. It works just as well in our own kitchens and pantry areas. I always advise clients to shop from their own store first. When they know where to look – because things are organized efficiently – it is so much easier.
Yes, we shouldn’t be lost in our own pantry. Limited space is challenging with smaller spaces. Thanks Diane.
Great ideas. I have a small panty with fairly deep shelves so I also group some categories in plastic bins so I can pull out the bin to see what is in it and also see what is behind that bin without pulling out a lot of individual items. I also check my panty each time before I put an item on my grocery list.
Having see through bins could be very helpful in smaller spaces. I can’t tell you how many times I bought something that later realized that I had it in the deep end of the fridge or pantry. It’s important to check before grabbing that grocery list.
I”m a believer in this approach because grocery stores are designed to keep things organized, while giving you easy access to what you want.
I’m not a fan of storing jars and cans, or even really boxes, inside of bins. Yes, it looks nicer, but then there is an extra step both to put it away and take it out. I DO love bins for, as you say, loose items that can’t easily be lined up on a shelf (snack bags, granola bars, ramen noodle packages, spice packets, etc.).
We learn from those who specialize in food storage, right?
I do like the see through bins for rice and beans, lentils etc. They sell now plastic bins of all shapes and sizes that’s so convenient for any pantry or cupboard. Thanks Seana.
This is essential! I’m always amazed when I see people sticking things in their pantries wherever there’s a blank space (much like they sometimes do in their closets). Running a small “shop” in your kitchen/pantry so there’s one place for each thing is the only way it even makes sense for me. Granted, I don’t really cook, so my pantry is pretty streamlined — ingredients in one set of cabinets, ready-to-eat food in another.
I don’t do the bin thing in my own home, only because i have so little food I keep on hand, but I do love small containers to corral spillables and all those little packets of taco seasoning or salad dressings so it’s easier to stand them up, file-style!
Great analogy! Like a grocery store, we keep our backstock in a separate area. I always tell people that if you don’t have room for backstock/overflow then the grocery store is where you should store your backstock items! I don’t have bins in most of my pantry because I have large double cabinets with pull-out drawers. I do have see through bins for beans/lentil and divider bins for snacks and nuts.
I have always organized like a grocery store. I became aware of a new situation. Sometimes a person has a health issue and it limits their mobility. Some items that you might put down low have to be higher because they can’t bend over to see down low. At my house, I have had to rearrange my fridge so the items that a person needs are on the higher shelf at the front of the shelf. This is the best part of organizing, making it work for the client and changing how you might usually suggest something be organized.