So my baking is increasing and I realize I need to start buying some items in bulk...especially with the holidays looming. I have 3 wholesale places to choose from: Sams, Costco & BJs. As far as baking needs, what are you opinions on the differences. Do you find that one generally has more/better deals on baking supplies? Do any of them carry cake flour by chance???

Thanks!

I shopped at those places and I never see cake flour

I currently have a Sams and Costco membership. Frankly both are not that great for bulk ingredients. No cake flour and neither have 100% pure cane powdered sugar. About the only thing I purchase from them is butter.

I haven't seen cake flour at Sam's or Costco. I don't have a BJ's in my area though. One thing I noticed about Sam's is that they seem to have items for both the home baker and the "professional" baker. Take powdered sugar. Mine has 7# bags and (I think) 25 or 50# bags. I've only seen 50# bags at Costco. You really have to go in and just look at what they have. The Sam's in my area could carry something that the next store over might not carry, and vice versa.

Also got to look at price of membership. Sam's is $35 for a business membership (what I would recommend, then you can go in and shop at 7am) and Costco is $50. No early opening hours either for Costco.

Another thing to consider, Sam's Club bakeries sell some of their supplies. From frozen cakes and cookie dough, to cases of their packaging supplies. The only thing we can't sell is the Decopac decorations. Costco will not sell their supplies, at least the one by me won't.

May sound like I'm building a case for Sam's, but it's just because I work there and know more about it than Costco. I've only just strolled around through Costco. You'll just have to investigate it. I know at Sam's they have a marketing team whose jobs are to go out to different businesses with information for them about their levels of membership. I believe Costco does that too. You can always call them up and ask to schedule a club tour or have the marketing team members come to you.

EDIT: gatorcake, have you checked out milk prices? Our milk is about a dollar cheaper than everywhere else. So if you buy a gallon a week, that's about $52 saved over that year, and that's more than the cost of a membership. Look into the Sam's Discover card too. We would have business members that own catering companies. They charge all their stuff, pay off the card at the end of the month, or make a couple payments a month. Their rewards checks would be about $5,000. One member would always have to call us and let us know he was coming in to cash his rewards check because it would always be over $10,000-$15,000.

I have Sam's over Costco. Sam's is cheaper and carries more baking stuff that I need. Plus their business hours start at 7 am and Costco isn't until 10 am. I am about 20 miles from them and my son goes to school about 5 miles from there so I drop him off at school and hit up Sam's Club right after so I only have to make the trip once. I would have to wait 2 more hours for Costco to open up. At Sam's I get butter, sugar, powdered sugar, AP flour, sour cream, buttermilk, lemons, vanilla extract, dark chocolate chips. When I get there at 8 am I can get in and out. Costco is always too crowded for me.

The biggest difference I have found between BJ's and Costco is the way items are packaged. My husband and I like to shop at BJ's because for the most part they carry large bunches of individually wrapped items. For example canned veggies. We purchase for our home so a 6 pack of canned string beans is better than one large industrial size can. We have no use for the large cans. Same goes for the deli sliced turkey, a 3 pack of those plastic container packages compared to one large open once and spoil package.

Thank you! The fact that Costco doesn't open until 10am completely sells me on Sam's. I need to shop when I drop my oldest off at school (easier to shop with the youngest). 10 am is too late! I will have to check it out!

Thanks for this question. I was also thinking about with one to get. I currently have Costco, but I do have the other stores in my area. At costco, the have the big bags of sugar,powder sugar, and butter. That's about it from Costco.

The BJ's stores near me do not carry cake flour, so I am going to assume that none of them do.

Theresa

I recently had the same idea bout buying some stuff in bulk, but I'm going to try something else besides Sam's, Costco, etc. I'm going to try where my dad works at Osborn Brothers Inc, a bulk food warehouse, here in town. They sell to schools, restaurants, and all other types of people in the community (as well as other areas). And I don't think that you have to be a "member" to buy from them. What I'm getting at is that if you ask around you may find a local business that you like even better than Sam's or what not. HTH

I only have Sam's in my area and it doesn't have a bakery so I can't get any of the bakery type items like buttercream. They sell 7# bags of powdered sugar and 25# bags of flour and sugar - but per pound, Aldi's is still cheaper. And they don't sell things like cake flour, cake mixes or corn syrup.
I wish Sam's would routinely sell cake domes, cake rounds, boxes, cake pans, etc like they do napkins - I would buy that stuff there rather than Hobby Lobby and nowhere can I find the plastic cake domes except online.

I thought about it also but for me sam's club wasn't less expensive than going to Walmart. The butter was the same price and the powdered sugar was about a penny cheaper per pound. Of course that was for great value brand which works fine for me. Of course like everyone said they didn't have cake flour.