Hi-- I dont' have a full fledged business yet but am definitely getting busier and busier. My most popular cakes are doctored mixes. It gets tedious going to the grocery store and filling my cart with cake mix boxes! Not to mention costly! I prefer Pillsbury mixes and they don't carry these at Costco for bulk purchase. What do you all do? Can you order directly from manufacturer? Maybe a grocery store could order a "crate" of boxes for me... I haven't tried that route yet.

What do you do?

found this:

food service direct

When I went through the checkout at Safeway with a cart-full of cake mixes (on sle for 79 cents) the manager and I got to talking and she said that if I want to order by the case to just let them know and to give them a couple days. I am all over that!

That's what I do also. When there's a sale I go to see the grocery's manager and he orders me the amount I want (instead of "cleaning" his isle ) and it arrives the next day!! That's the best to work it out around here!!
hope it helps
Lorris

This is just my opinion, but I would rather fill up a cart at Walmart for the 88cents/box than order from that particular company for bulk. I did a bulk food search and most all the companies were a min. of $1.50/box than a regular grocer.

You might try a local Sam's Club. They do most everything in bulk. I get all my products at Sam's & actually come out a LOT better than just buying singles all the time.

BellaRosa

I understand how you feel about filling up the carriage. Please keep this in mind when your buying items like cake mixes. With ingredients like flour, cake mixes muffin mixes pasta etc . You don't want them to sit very long in your cabinets because there is a chance of any Indian Meal Moth Eggs to hatch and when this happens you have to throw everything and I mean everything away that is in your cabinet. If the eggs become lava they will lay more eggs where we cant see them. ( please I have been thru this twice and I don't wish it on my worst enemy) Not to mention if the cake mixes sit too long they will loose their ability to rise and cook correctly. SO for this less is better.
Good luck

Here is a link to the pesty problem http://www.bugclinic.com/IndianMealMoth.htm

Thanks everyone! You've given me some great options. That food service site is really interesting-- so is the idea of ordering in bulk thru the grocery store when cakes are on sale. Psurrette- I had no idea that the meal moth could get into cake mixes-- I thought that the mix being in a sealed bag prevented that. Uggggh. But anyway, thanks again for all of your great advice!!

psurette thanks for that link i never heard of those but now i will be on the look out......better to be safe than sorry.............

gross.....good thing I cant stand to eat things that have been sitting for a while

thats a good idea, I will have to see if the store manager would let me get it directly from them..

I go thorugh cake mixes so fast (usually about a dozen a week) I don't think shelf life would be a problem. They probably sit longer at the store! haha

On the meal moth thing... it doesn't really matter if you buy it yourself and store it or if it sits in a warehouse forever. You may buy something that is already infested and not know it.

There may be areas where they're more prevelant, but I wouldn't base wether or not I buy in bulk on it. I've encountered the moth problem only twice in my life. Once growing up and once when i was on my own. You do have to throw away ALL dry goods and clean everything really well. But, after that one time (in each place) we never had the problem again.

Wow- An 80 oz box!! Now that's a big mix!

I checked out food service direct, too.
Duncan Hines is like $2/box.
Pillsbury, a 80oz box is about $10.
80oz box is like 4 regular boxes, so that's still more than $2 per "box"

Our Sam's doesn't stock cake mix reliably, it's just easier to go to wally world and be sure even though they are $1

My local store will order them for my by the case as well. I just have to give them 2 days notice. So on a monday I order my cake mixes for that week that I will bake on Thursday. Works great for me.

I store all my cake mixes in the freezer, i've never had these issues.

Moth problem can be solved by isolating grains in to smaller "sealed" boxes, OR (what I do), freeze everything for a minimum of 48 hours (that does kill it), then store normally. 

I unbox the mix, label with flavor and date, and just freeze the bags. If I run out of freezer space, I know I can safely remove some of the frozen grain items and store at room temperature safely.