A couple months ago I found out our church was doing a food co-op through Denver Wholesale Foods, I'm sure there are others also. I've made about three orders so far and think this is a great way to increase my stored food at a discount. The prices for most of what we've ordered have been below even Sam's or Costco. The drawbacks are you have to order in bulk and there are shipping costs but that cost is divided between the members. The way it works is we place an order once a month and pickup the 4th Thursday of the month. A truck drops the food on pallets at our church parking lot. They also have a dry goods co-op that I'm going to try next.

We've used food co-ops for a long while in many different forms.  We've joined a group ordering Bonneville Baskets.  My wife has also run a food co-op where she would go down to a restaurant supply and buy food in bulk, then divide it up and the members would come pick it up at our house.  We also would do a monthly group order from Emergency Essentials.  At EE, if you buy their item of the month, then shipping on your order is free.  

Food co-ops are a great way to get food cheaper than you can at the local stores.

When I first heard about it I wasn't sure the prices would be any better than Sam's or Costco but so far we've saved money. I keep an excel sheet with food prices per unit so I have something to compare against. The other benefit for me was it made stocking up easy. Ordering in bulk is a drawback for some but was a benefit for me. Hopefully I'll have my 6 months worth for food goal accomplished this year.