Normally I would agree with the bulk dry foods. I'd way rather buy local and support my local vendors.

However, when I was in the Philippines (Tuguegarao City) I spend all day going to every market and store trying to find dried beans. At the end of the day no soya beans, no kidney beans, no chick peas (garbonzo beans), no split peas and only found very overpriced black beans and mung beans in quantity of 100g.

Since I was looking for 50kg sack for bulk purchase it didn't work out well and I had to fall back to online shopping.

One thing I really want to do is buy bulk (one tonne) for various dry goods (wheat, soy bean, etc) and then donate to places in need but arranging rail transport and shipping container transport has been challenging.

So, for right now I look at other avenues :)