How to Get the Cheapest Nutritional Yeast (Prices Compared)

Did you know: That Bragg nutritional yeast shaker pictured above costs over 3x as much (by weight) as buying bulk nutritional yeast online… Yikes!

If you eat a lot of nutritional yeast (like I do), and if you’re on a budget (like I am), then it’s absolutely worthwhile to find the cheapest ways to stock up. It’s common sense that you could find cheaper nutritional yeast online… But you may not know where to start.

The cheapest way to buy nutritional yeast is by buying in bulk online (as low as $5.60/lb. from Country Life Natural Foods, for example). The next cheapest way is by buying from bulk bins at a store. The most expensive way to buy nutritional yeast is from pre-packaged shakers or bags at the store (I’ve seen it as high as $27.17/lb.).

In this post, I’ll be breaking down each of these options with real prices, links to where you can buy online, and practical tips from my own experience!

How to Compare Prices Correctly

When you’re price shopping for nooch, be sure to compare price per weight. For example, “dollars per pound” or “dollars per ounce” are the units in the U.S.

This is a basic but important point. If you buy a cheaper nutritional yeast option online, but then the container is only half the size of the others, you just got duped!

In this post, I’ll use the price per pound to compare between brands and vendors.

#1 Cheapest Nutritional Yeast: Buy in Bulk Online.

The best way to get affordable nutritional yeast is to buy in bulk online. This allows you to get bulk prices and comparison shop.

When you’re buying 5 lbs, 10 lbs, or 50 lbs, the discounts can be much higher than in-store bulk bins. If you use nooch regularly, then 5 lbs or more isn’t a crazy amount to buy at once.

The best prices I found were from Country Life Natural Foods. But I’ve included a spread of all the most reasonable options I found online, with links to each.

Note: Most (but not all) of these prices are for Red Star brand nutritional yeast. Red Star is one of the leading brands of nutritional yeast, and I’ve had it many times myself—it’s good.

Price for 1 Pound of Nutritional Yeast:

• Country Life Natural Foods: $8.95/lb.
• Essential Organics: $9.25/lb.
• Bulkfoods: $9.79/lb.
• Azure: $9.85/lb.
• Thrive Market: $11.99/lb.

Price for 3 Pounds of Nutritional Yeast:

• Country Life Natural Foods: $22.80 ($7.60/lb.)

Price for 5 Pounds of Nutritional Yeast:

• Essential Organics: $40.00 ($8.00/lb.)
• Bulkfoods: $40.59 ($8.12/lb.)
• Azure: $42.85 ($8.57/lb.)
• True Foods Market: $46.50 ($9.30/lb.)
• Hoosier Hill Farm: $49.99 ($10.00/lb.)

Price for 6 Pounds of Nutritional Yeast:

• Kevala: $68.50 ($11.42/lb.)

Price for 10 Pounds of Nutritional Yeast:

• Country Life Natural Foods: $63.50 ($6.53/lb.)

Price for 50 Pounds of Nutritional Yeast:

• Country Life Natural Foods: $280.00 ($5.60/lb.)
• Essential Organics: $350.75 ($7.02/lb.)
• Bulkfoods: $374.95 ($7.50/lb.)
• Kevala: $383.00 ($7.66/lb.)
• Azure: $385.09 ($7.70/lb.)

These are the cheapest nooch prices you’re likely to find anywhere. But in case buying bulk online doesn’t suit you for some reason, let’s explore other options, too.

Second Cheapest: Bulk Bins in the Store.

The second cheapest way to buy nutritional yeast is from the bulk bins at a grocery store, natural foods store, co-op, or health-food store.

When you buy from bulk bins at a store, you get a bulk price, but you don’t get to comparison shop. And you don’t get extra discounts when you buy multiple pounds at once.

At my local grocery store, I can get nutritional yeast from the bulk bin for $12.99. This is still much cheaper than buying a shaker or small pre-packaged bag. But it’s not as good as online bulk prices.

You may be able to comparison shop between a few local places in your area. But not every grocery store has bulk bins—so most of us only have one or two options nearby. Some specific stores that may have nutritional yeast in bulk bins:

• Whole Foods
• Sprouts
• Wegman’s
• Trader Joe’s

Third Cheapest: Buy Pre-Packaged Online.

If you only want one pound of nutritional yeast or less, in a convenient package like a shaker, it may be worth buying pre-packaged online.

When you buy nooch this way, you don’t get low bulk prices, but you can still comparison shop for the cheapest brands. So this can be far cheaper than the over-priced shakers in the store.

Many of you will be most comfortable with buying from Amazon, so a natural question would be, What’s the cheapest nooch on Amazon?

Cheapest Nutritional Yeast on Amazon

There are many nutritional yeast brands on Amazon. I looked through the search results, calculating the price per pound. I can’t list all the exact prices here because it’s against Amazon’s affiliate policy (I’m an Amazon affiliate). So I’ll just show you the best option.

KAL was the cheapest nutritional yeast (by weight) that I found on Amazon. This is a brand I’ve had several times myself. In fact, I currently have some in my house, so I took a picture for this post! It’s good stuff. Check the current price here.

Keep in mind, this is still going to be more expensive than most bulk bins in stores, and potentially around twice the cost (by weight) you can get when buying bulk elsewhere online. But hey, Amazon is convenient.

Most Expensive Way to Buy Nutritional Yeast

When you buy pre-packaged nutritional yeast in the store, that will be the most expensive way to go. Sure, the shakers are convenient. Sure, it’s nice to pick it up locally without waiting for a package in the mail. But it’ll cost you.

So I don’t recommend buying high quantities of nooch pre-packaged in the store. Buy a shaker to hold you over if needed. Then shop online for more when you get home.

It’s still worth comparing the price per pound of different brands in the store if you can. On my recent trip to the store, we had three options for very different prices:

• Red Star (4.5 oz shaker): $5.49 each ($17.57/lb.)
• Bragg’s (5 oz shaker): $5.99 each ($21.30/lb.)
• Bob’s Red Mill (5 oz bag): $8.49 each ($27.17/lb.)

So, Red Star is the most affordable option. But remember, you saw above that you can save more than 50% of this price per pound when buying bulk Red Star online

Bonus: The ACTUAL Cheapest Nutritional Yeast (But It’s Not Legal)

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to include this section in the post. But hey, you deserve the full story. Right?

I have some friends who actually get their nutritional yeast much cheaper than any of the methods laid out on this page. They sometimes get it for as low as $1 or $2 per pound.

And that’s without buying 50 pounds in bulk. They just get a small or medium-sized bag each time. How do they do this?

Well, as I teased in the subheading, it’s not legal.

What they do is just put the nutritional yeast in a bulk bag/container at the grocery store, and then they label it as something else. They write down the bin identification number for oats, couscous, or cornflour—something small and yellow like that.

I know—that’s stealing. But my friends are “anti-corporate,” and they shop at big chain stores like Whole Foods, so they justify it to themselves that way. And the employees apparently haven’t been invested enough to check or challenge them on it yet.

Personally, I’ve never done it because I’d feel too guilty (and worried about getting caught!). But I felt like just mentioning it as a final point!

Two More Recommendations for Your Plant-Based Journey

1. This is the best free video training I’ve found on plant-based nutrition. You’ll learn how to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and obesity—all with plant-based food. Watch the free “Food for Health Masterclass” here.

2. This is the best vegan multivitamin I’ve found in my 14 years of being vegan. It has vitamin B12, vitamin D, omega-3—and nothing else. Translation: It only has the nutrients vegans are actually low in. Read my full review of Future Kind’s multivitamin here (with 10% discount).

If you found this blog post helpful and you don’t want to lose track of it, save the Pin below to your Pinterest “Nutritional Yeast” or “Plant-Based Diet” boards!