Concern Over Changes to
Home Storage Centers Unnecessary

Over the past several weeks, misinformation and unnecessary concern has been circulating on blogs, over social media channels and by email regarding changes in operations at the Church’s home storage centers, which are located in the U.S. and Canada. No home storage centers are being closed, but the Church is making welcomed modifications in its operations at most of these centers that will help to better serve the needs of members of the Church, as well as significantly improve efficiency.

In all but 12 of the Church’s 101 home storage centers in the U.S. and Canada, patrons will no longer self-can products, but they may purchase these same items pre-canned or prepackaged at no additional cost.

These changes have been considered for some time as the Church has looked at the best way to provide home storage goods to Church members efficiently. Much of the discussion regarding this issue has suggested that this change is due to food safety regulation. While it has been a factor, the concern expressed regarding that issue has been overstated.

While many individuals have enjoyed self-canning at the Church’s home storage centers, the advantages of providing pre-canned or prepackaged goods include:

• It’s more efficient and cost effective for the Church to produce and ship high-quality, pre-canned or prepackaged goods in bulk rather than ship the same goods and empty cans to a location where individuals can them on their own.
• By offering the goods pre-canned or prepackaged, the Church utilizes less warehouse space.
• Pre-canned and prepackaged operations allow for higher quality and safer preparation of home storage food.
• It is much more costly to maintain and upgrade facilities that must meet food production standards (such as in a self-canning operation) than it is to maintain a facility that simply distributes pre-canned and prepackaged food. 
• Volunteer personnel time can be used more efficiently.

The following 12 home storage centers will continue to offer self-canning for the time being as the Church continues to monitor the goods and services offered at home storage centers and makes adjustments as needed:

• Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
• Mesa, Arizona
• Boise, Idaho                                                     
• Idaho Falls, Idaho
• Carrollton, Texas
• Lindon, Utah
• Logan, Utah
• Ogden, Utah
• Salt Lake City, Utah (Welfare Square)
• Sandy, Utah
• Springville, Utah
• St. George, Utah

The remaining 89 centers will provide pre-canned goods. A list of all home storage centers is available here.