Where Bulk is Beautiful

With her salt-and-pepper ponytail, oversized glasses, and no-nonsense attitude, Emily Jefferson seems like the best kind of grandma: the sort who won’t tolerate any shenanigans but will slip you a homemade chocolate-chip cookie with a cheeky smile. If you ask nicely, she’ll also share her Tollhouse cookie-baking tips: Use two parts brown sugar to one part white and use Prairie Gold white whole wheat flour. “It doesn’t have as much tannins in it, so you don’t get what my husband calls that healthy nutty flavor,” Jefferson confides. “And it bakes up a golden color, so you don’t notice it at all!”

 

As owner of The Larder, in Plumstead, Jefferson sources that flour from her own store, a cornucopian purveyor of everyday and specialty foods and ingredients—more than 1,000 items in all—most in bulk and many from sources within 100 miles on both sides of the Delaware River. Among The Larder’s rows of bins and neat shelves, customers will find fresh dried spices and sugar sprinkles, small-batch roasted coffee and loose tea, dried fruits and baking supplies, snack mixes, nuts, and delicious sweets. In 2026, the store will celebrate its fortieth anniversary.

 

The idea for the store was sparked by Jefferson’s husband, Don, who noticed the popularity of a bulk food aisle at a Central New Jersey Pathmark. “He said, ‘You know, that might very well work as a free-standing business,’” Jefferson recalls. They settled on the name “The Larder” for its double meaning as a family’s food supply and an old-fashioned term for a pantry.

 

Purchasing goods in bulk is a boon for bargain shoppers. “Particularly with spices,” she says. “We’re usually at least half, and frequently considerably more than half, off the price of what you find at the grocery store.” There’s an ecological benefit, too, as customers can fill their own containers. Plus, weekly deliveries allow for fresher products. “When you open one of our spice containers,” she notes, “the fragrance comes out to you.”

 

As to the store’s most popular items, coffee beans, dark chocolate nonpareils, gummy bears, and trail mixes are perennial favorites. “We sell literally a ton of oatmeal a year,” Jefferson says. She personally favors the organic, fair trade breakfast blend coffee, which is roasted to order and delivered fresh from Kaffe Magnum Opus in Millville, New Jersey. She also creates gift baskets for all occasions, which can be delivered locally or shipped nationally. In time for Easter, The Larder will offer spring-themed chocolates from Asher’s Chocolates in Souderton, Pennsylvania, and Giambri’s in Clementon, New Jersey. This summer, Jefferson again plans to sell organic tomatoes from her home garden. “We have tomato devotees,” she says.

 

When Jefferson isn’t overseeing retail operations, she enjoys baking for Don and their four grandkids, target shooting at local ranges, and gardening, though she insists her husband is the true “tomato whisperer.”

 

Jefferson loves having been part of the Plumstead community for so long and getting to know the children and grandchildren of her original customers. “It’s just so cool when someone comes in and says, ‘I was here when you first opened,’ or ‘I was here when I was a kid, and now I’m bringing my kids in,’” Jefferson says, with that cheeky smile again. “It’s great.”

 

Melissa D. Sullivan is a fiction writer, attorney, and regular contributor to River Towns. She is currently tweaking her own excellent chocolate-chip cookie recipe.