Azure Standard

We have been members of Costco for quite a few years. As it was, the amazing price on steel cut oats and whole grain brown rice alone covered the cost of membership. With both of these now being gone (and having been gone for quite some time), we started looking into options. The best option that came up, which seems to be well known in the homesteading community, but we had totally missed it, is Azure Standard.

Basically, you place your order online and the Azure trucks make their rounds throughout the US once a month to drop off at a central point near you for everyone to pick up their orders. There are no minimum orders, just order as you have needs.

The secret we found for great pricing is to buy in bulk. The website breaks down the price per item/weight/etc. and buying in bulk can save quite a bit for most items. (Enough to invest in some food grade buckets and twist lids for storage. :o) Buying in bulk takes some advanced planning, but reduces costs overall and may also reduce impulse shopping, if that is a temptation.

We picked up our first order and are seeing that this works for our family. We haven’t completely dropped Costco yet, but that may be coming before too long.

This also helps with our desire to be more on the homestead and less in the city. With buying bulk and delivery nearby, we aren’t spending a lot of time shopping and in the city. Eventually our goal is to be more “community sufficient” and decrease the needs for outside resources, but for now this seems to be a good way to provide for many of our needs.

(Our focus for now with Azure is on dried products, grains, rices, etc. as we see what works best for our family.)

We may post an update on this once we have more to say, but for now we have been happy.

If you should want to try Azure, we would appreciate your using our Referral link for a credit towards our purchases (https://www.azurestandard.com/?a_aid=0e932062e4), or go to https://www.azurestandard.com/start and use our referral code (RobertGoll2).

Update (2025/04/22 – Over one year using Azure)

Additional positives that we have found:

Clearance – Each month, it can also be fun to see what they have on clearance. Sometimes things are just a small discount, but occasionally there is something on deep discount that can make a nice treat for the family. We don’t usually end up ordering clearance items, but it can be a fun bonus sometimes.

Community – As we’ve been there for quite a few pickups, we have also enjoyed talking with others who are there to pick up. It’s a nice group and tends to have some similarity of thought with desire to stay healthy and being organized enough to make the plans for shopping in advance once a month. We’ve enjoyed connecting with others in line. (Speaking of the “line”. The line is to help unload the truck. Everyone who would like to help unload, stands in line on the ground while the driver is in the truck. He hands you a box and you go put it by the name markers that are on the ground. (Don’t worry, if you can’t help with the line, that is no problem. Others have fun doing it.)

We have found two potential negatives:

Timing of the pickup – You know when you order what week the truck will come (Monday-Friday), but not specifically which day, that isn’t known until a few days before (and could change if the truck has issues). This can make planning a bit difficult. We did need to miss one pickup due to a scheduling conflict. The organizers of our local pickup were kind enough to take our bag (fortunately a small order that month) to their house for us to pick up later. Some organizers may charge a small fee for this. As we get to know more people using Azure, we can help each other to pick up if there is a conflict.

Rain/Snow – We have been using Azure for a year and I don’t think we’ve run into this, but rain or snow could be an issue. The truck comes when the truck comes. There may be some cover at your drop-off point, or perhaps not. That could be an issue with bulk dry goods. We’ve had this in mind some months as it looked like it could rain, but I don’t think it has been an issue.

We have continued to enjoy Azure. It has been a good fit for our family.