How Do You Organize Snacks in a Pantry?

If you have children or you simply love having a variety of snacks available for your own consumption, you might have noticed that snack storage can be a challenge. Children and teenagers often open more than one box or bag of one specific snack. Small items might get shoved to the back of the pantry or fall through the shelving onto the floor. Your younger children might not be able to reach what they want... or perhaps they can reach everything and eat too many cupcakes or bags of pretzels at once. Here are some tips on how to minimize clutter and have an organized pantry thanks to better snack storage strategies.

If you don’t mind your children helping themselves to certain snack items, try storing them on a lower shelf right at their eye level (or lower). This is, of course, best for healthy items that they can open without help or without making a mess. Granola bars, small cups of fruit, and whole-grain breakfast cereal are good options. If you purchase items in larger containers rather than in single-serve packages, consider portioning them in ziplock bags or easy-to-open plastic containers. 

Many families with children in school choose to purchase individually packaged snacks to make it easier to make lunches. Pantry organization issues occur when the big bags or boxes get torn open and the individual snacks begin to take over the space. You can combat this by corralling the individual packages in some sort of bin or basket. Dump all of the bags of chips or granola bars out of the bag or box they come in and separate them into bins. This way, all your kids have to do is reach into the bin and take one out. No more mess!

If you have older children, you might find that they tend to open more than one bag of chips or more than one box of toaster pastries or granola bars. This makes the pantry cluttered and messy. Keep only what is open on the lower shelves and put the unopened boxes and bags up high. Make it a rule that they cannot help themselves to a container on the top shelf of the pantry without permission. This can cut down on having five or six (or more!) bags of potato chips languishing on a shelf. Not only will it look neater but it will also reduce spoilage and food waste due to items getting stale.

After you go grocery shopping, it’s often easiest to put the newest items in the front of the pantry when you put the items away. You know that you should put new items toward the back of the shelf, but if it’s hard to access the back of the shelf, that tends to create a mess. Pull-out shelving in the pantry can eliminate this problem.