Rave: Another Company Does It Right – BulkFoods.com

You may already know that I occasionally rant about crummy service or poor quality goods from companies or sellers – but I also like to give credit where it’s due. Most recently, I placed an order for nutritional yeast with a company from which I’d purchased the yeast previously, and was impressed with the consistently positive experience. Unusual these days, it seems…

If you raise waterfowl, you know that a diet containing adequate niacin is a must for proper development (particularly leg development). A feed formulated for waterfowl may contain sufficient niacin, but a poultry feed like chick starter – which I use – is formulated for chicks‘ nutritional needs; this means that there is typically insufficient niacin in a feed formulated for chickens to meet the needs of waterfowl like ducklings and goslings. To prevent deficiency, adding a good source of niacin to their feed is necessary.

A couple of common methods of supplementing niacin are adding a niacin supplement to the water source or mixing either brewer’s yeast or nutritional yeast into the feed itself. Because waterfowl splash out – and foul – their water, it’s difficult to ensure that they’re getting an adequate amount via the water source, so I prefer to add nutritional yeast to their feed. They love it, it tastes good, and I also use it for my other animals and consume it, myself – try it sprinkled on freshly-popped popcorn! Learn more about the health benefits of nutritional yeast (or “nooch”) here.

I raise a lot of waterfowl, so I go through nooch pretty quickly. After buying it in 1 pound bags, I searched for sources of bulk quantities and landed on the BulkFoods page. After ordering a 5 pound bag and having it last considerably longer, I won’t buy in smaller quantities again!

Why BulkFoods? First, the pricing is very good: the 5 pound bag of nutritional yeast (which is superior to brewer’s yeast, a bitter substance, for this purpose) flakes cost about $40. Since I only ordered the nooch this time, the shipping was $8. In all, the cost was just shy of $10/pound. Still competitive. But where this purchase really stood out was the speed of delivery, excellent communication, and quality of the product.

Astoundingly, the product actually shipped the next day. I received a notification when it shipped with an estimated delivery date, and it arrived a day early. Just as last time, the nooch was sealed in an airtight bag (not resealable, but not a problem) and packed into a right-sized shipping box with crumpled paper cushioning. The environment thanks them – as do my cats, who enjoy playing in their “paper kingdom”.

Finally, the nooch smells appealing – a bit like cheese – and is dry, flaky, and exactly as expected. Everybody on the farm loves nooch!

I’ve also purchased TVP – an enormous 25 pound bag – from Bulk Foods and was equally pleased. I am, in fact, still working my way through all that TVP. I’ve consistently been pleased by the thoughtful packing – no extra plastic and right-sized boxes – and the functional packaging. I’ve received just what I expected, and that’s more than I can say for purchases made from many other vendors.

The next time I’m looking to buy in bulk, I’ll be checking the BulkFoods site first. They actually deliver my order timely (unlike Amazon), deliver the goods I’ve ordered (unlike Amazon)…and they don’t mow down my mailbox and deny it (unlike Amazon)! Good on you, BulkFoods!

In case you’re wondering, I have no relationship with BulkFoods and therefore no financial incentive to publish a positive review. I’m doing it because they’re good at what they do and I wanted to share that with other folks out there. They sell many other bulk items, and, based on my purchases, I would confidently order other goods from them.