i grab em each time i go to costco bakery department. hit or miss.

sams club offered me one, but the lady said it was $2.50 per bucket and they weren’t even clean.....said nah i’ll pass. she put it back into the trash can.

Food safe food schmafe,, use the damn homer buckets, rinse em out with bleach and hot water if you need to.

Sorbent Systems site has extensive data sheets on all of their mylar showing what goes through and how fast.   The good bags are not super expensive and will last a LOONNNNGGG time.

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Moving on -

Look, O2 absorbers are dirt cheap.  Dry ice works but you have a much bigger risk for condensation, have to get the ice, have to get ice that doesn't have water ice in it, etc.

The biggest pain with absorbers is needing to plan out a run.  Do the math to determine how many absorbers per contrainer, pour all the stuff in, and for really big bags seal them most of the way up... then you just chuck in the absorbers, roll as much air out as you can, and seal them up.  You want to get them all in and sealed in like 10 minutes if you can.

- The slow acting absorbers are good if your prep area is cold and/or humid, less chance of condensation
- The plastic clips for resealing absorber packaging work.  If you can find them, they seem mostly unobtanium now, being imported.
- Absorbers just chilling out in the factory vac packaging will last a surprisingly long time, although you can chuck the whole thing in a mylar bag (remember you can wash those out and re-use those) if you're worried about shelf life.   Having absorbers on hand is much handier than having to rely on dry ice.

- Gamma lids are overkill for mylar, and mostly handy for other uses (partly opened bags, repurposing the bucket for something else, etc).   Cheapo bucket + Gamma lid is easily $13 now if you get a good deal on lids by the case.  Food grade is a couple bucks more.  You can save the money and just use one of the easy snap-on lids.

- Biggest benefit to food grade buckets is using the bucket later for bare bulk food storage or for water.  If you are using thick mylar it really doesn't matter that much, you aren't going to give a crap about  the type of bucket if you need to eat that food.   If you're using cheap buckets, at least wash the things thoroughly before letting them come into direct contact with food.

- Possibly better than buckets is Brute containers.  Many are food grade and can hold 1.5-2x as much as a 5 gallon bucket, significantly more durable, and they're much easier to stack and to transport in vehicles.  Cost-wise they come out slightly ahead per volume of food than Homer buckets + Gamma lids - I have seen them recently as low as $18 for a 10 gallon.   It is much more work to seal up multiple bags for one (vs one giant ass bag in a bucket), but you also have the benefit of being able to crack open smaller amounts at a time, which helps if you are actually rotating through this food.

- I have also used Roughneck containers but they're not food grade and many of the newer ones are much flimsier than older versions.  Rubbermaid is letting people make them under license and they're skimping on plastic.  I would not trust them sliding in and out of my pickup without taking care not to get holes/cuts in them.

Big lesson:  if you have a stock of absorbers and mylar, you can take advantage of food deals that pop up and get any excess properly stores ASAP so you're less likely to deal with pests and other spoilage.

If OP doesn't want to use the Homer buckets for food, then they still probably need a bunch to crap in if they're thinking about fallout.

I found a few dozen food safe buckets at WM. Then ordered gamma seal lids to go with them.