The start of the year is the perfect time to get organised and the pantry is a fantastic place to begin. 

Your kitchen pantry and cupboards can quickly become a cluttered and disorganised space in your kitchen, piled with half empty packets of food, miscellaneous spices and out of date products. Despite this, your pantry can be one of the most exciting and inspiring spaces to organise; with endless organisation possibilities your pantry can become a stylish and functional space. 

But where to start when organising your pantry storage? Fear not! Read on to discover our top storage ideas to help keep your kitchen cupboards clutter-free and organised to perfection.

Plan out the space

Before embarking on your pantry organisation journey, it's vital that you think about and map out how best to use the space. Consider how you cook and prepare food and the items that you use most and least often.

Does it make sense to have a breakfast section and/or a snack section? What items should be within easy reach, and what can be stored in the less accessible spaces? It’s important to consider whether there are foods you want to store out of reach of children too! Think all of these things through and start a plan!

Categorise your food items

For great pantry organisation, you should divide up your food items by category so you can store similar items together. Doing this will help to ensure you will always find it easy to locate exactly what you’re looking for. This can be as generic as ‘snacks’ or as specific as ‘nuts’ so long as it makes sense for you, Here’s a list to get you started:

• Spices

• Canned goods

• Snacks

• Bread

• Crackers

• Savoury spreads

• Sweet spreads

• Dry ingredients

• Cereal or breakfast items

• Baking

• Pasta

• Condiments

• Perishables

As you sort through, discard all expired products. This is a really quick way to instantly reduce clutter and free up extra storage space in your pantry. If you come across an item that doesn’t have an expiration date and you can’t remember when you last used it for something, that should be discarded too. By doing this, you can start with a clean slate and be sure that you’re only organising fresh, edible items.

Deep clean your cabinets and drawers

Before you start to return items to your pantry, be sure to give it a deep clean. You’ve already removed everything so why not take it as a cleaning opportunity.

Using hot, soapy water, wipe down all pantry doors, shelves, drawers, and handles. For extra cleanliness, you may choose to go over it with an antibacterial spray too.

Store food by category in bins or baskets

With your pantry items now categorised by type, you’ll be able gauge how much space you need to allocate for each category. Clear bins are a great way to organise and contain food in your pantry whilst allowing you to see the contents easily at a glance. As well this, by containing food items inside bins that can be moved easily, you’ll have better access to the items at the back of your pantry.

When selecting storage bins for your pantry organisation project, also be sure to measure the width, height, and depth of your shelves and drawers to ensure that bins will fit where you need them to. Trust us, measuring in advance and knowing your pantry dimensions will save a lot of back and forth with returns

Utilise turntables

On shelves that may be difficult to access, turntables are a brilliant solution. In some cases, spinning the turntable to see food items may be easier for you than pulling out a bin every time you want to access an ingredient.

Turntables are perfect for categorising items such as condiments, oils and vinegars and can often fit a surprising amount!

Use vertical space for pantry organisation

Making the most of vertical space in a pantry is one of our favourite pantry storage tips. Think door space for items such as spice jars and bottles and shelf risers for canned goods, pasta sauce jars etc. Cupboard shelf inserts are another excellent way to add another shelf without the need for any drilling!

Stack things sideways

Instead of stacking everything on top of one another, which more often than not ends up in a big mess, stack them sideways. This storing method saves space and it’s a lot easier to sort through what you need. These organisers are great for drinks cans but work just as well for tinned goods too.

Decant your spices

Upgrading your mismatched spice jars to uniform jars and labels can have a huge practical and visual impact. When selecting and purchasing your new spice jars, be sure to count up your spice collection so you know exactly how many you need and then add a couple more for new incoming spices so you’re not caught short

Utilise canisters or jars

As well as giving your pantry a more streamlined and aesthetically appealing appearance, food decanted in clear canisters or jars will stay fresher for longer! Common pantry items to decant include:

• Cereals

• Rice

• Pasta

• Flour

• Sugar

• Lentils

• Noodles

• Nuts

• Seeds

Keep a section for backstock items

Create a dedicated backstock section for any surplus shelf-stable foods as well as partially used bags of items such as flour or sugar that don’t entirely fit in your pantry canisters during the decanting process. You don’t need two identical jars of mayonnaise on your pantry shelf; finish the opened one first, and put the extra in back stock until you need it so you don’t have doubles or even triples taking up prime pantry space.

Typically, backstock items are best stored on the top or bottom shelf which  frees up space on other shelves for items that you use on a daily basis. In essence, your backstock is essentially a section for excess product that doesn’t need to clutter up your nicely organised categories.

Keep what you use at eye level

Place any food items that you use less frequently on higher shelves or lower shelves and items that you use on a regular basis closer to eye level. For example, place backstock bins on the highest shelf in the pantry as you’ll only need to reach for them when you need to refill or replace something or before a shopping trip.

Use labels for easy identification

Once you have everything placed in its dedicated space in the pantry, the final step in your pantry organisation is labelling! 

Adding labels ensures it's always easy to identify whatever you need. Having done all of the work of categorising your pantry items you want to be able to look at a bin and know exactly what’s inside of it at a glance. A label maker is a great investment and our favourite is the p-touch cube by Brother.

However, a word of caution; try not to get too caught up in labelling everything single thing so specifically. If you need to constantly relabel your bins, it isn't really a sustainable organising solution. method. For example, whilst some of your clear canisters may always contain the same thing inside e.g. sugar or flour,  others may change throughout the year. For example, you may have almonds in a container one month, but the following month it could contain walnuts. In this case, simply label the canister as ‘nuts’ instead of the specific contents. The same goes for cereal or pasta. Our rule; give yourself a label specific enough to identify contents, and generic enough to have flexibility in your shopping habits!

How will you organise your pantry?

Pantry organisation doesn’t need to be overwhelming. With the right strategies you can transform your kitchen pantry effectively and sustainably. Embracing tools like turntables and clear bins showcases how pantry organisation can elevate your kitchen’s efficiency. Canisters and jars can play a pivotal role in freshness, and labelling items can simplify snack-time for the kids. Beyond aesthetics, pantry organisation will streamline meal preparation and generally make day-to-day life smoother. Regular maintenance of your pantry organisation will ensure longevity. 

Armed with these pantry organisation insights, we wish you luck  on your pantry transformation journey! And don’t forget, if you feel you need some support in getting your pantry organised, Homefulness is here to help!