General Question

Ltryptophan's avatar

How many 55 gallon drums would the contents of a typical fully stocked grocery store cereal aisle fit into?

Asked by Ltryptophan (12091points) January 21st, 2022 from iPhone

You empty all the boxes of cereal into drums. How many would you expect to fill?

More than one?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

14 Answers

Blackwater_Park's avatar

Based on how little cereal comes in boxes these days I’d be surprised if it filled one barrel.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Cereal was almost empty last night. Only two or three drums !

No bread or milk; there is a snowstorm in North Carolina.

rebbel's avatar

Can I use a funnel?
Asking because if when I fill my bowl in the morning, half of the cereal lands on my worktop.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Seven.

prove me wrong.

kritiper's avatar

Two. (Compacted.)

YARNLADY's avatar

18 boxes of Honeynut Oats would fill one drum, so a fully stocked shelf would fill about a dozen drums

gondwanalon's avatar

If you use a compactor to remove all the air then the cereal would likely fill ½ a 55 gallon drum.

Jeruba's avatar

Here’s the guy who can probably tell you: Rob Cockerham, hero of “How Much Is Inside?”

Be sure to scroll down and check out some of the contents he has measured. For example, how large an area can you cover with one tube of lipstick? Aren’t you dying to know?

RocketGuy's avatar

Sounds like math homework. You would multiply the length x height x depth of the aisles to get volume, then put in a fill factor for air gap over the boxes and empty space due to product shortages. That gets you volume of cereal. Convert to gallons and divide by 55.

At the Safeway I go to, they could put maybe 8×55 gal barrels in that space. If the fill factor is 0.5 then 4x barrels would be filled.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Right, that’s one waym @RocketGuy but if I were trying to save space, I would take the cereal OUT of the box and dump it in the drum, and then fold the cardboard flat, to save space.

RocketGuy's avatar

Moisture and oxygen would make it all stale after a while unless you found a way to get at the cereal without allowing that to get in.

Blackwater_Park's avatar

@RocketGuy You seal it up with a desiccant cannister and an activated hot hands pack or bag of iron powder.

RocketGuy's avatar

and a drawer/air lock dispenser like the ones for cereal bins in cafeterias.

YARNLADY's avatar

@RocketGuy I like that idea.

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