The Church has announced changes to home storage centers.

“Over time, we will be reducing the number of facilities where the packaging of dry goods occurs,” spokeswoman Ruth Todd said May 6. However, she added, the Church’s “home storage centers will offer the same or additional commodities in prepackaged form at no additional cost.”

Sister Todd said, “The change from self-service canning to prepackaged commodities occurs over time and depends on what goods are available at each individual facility.”

She said once the change occurs, people will be able to get the same variety of supplies and goods and at the same price.

“The Church is not closing canneries and is not limiting the variety of goods available to Church members,” she said. The only thing being reduced over time is the number of locations at which members can purchase bulk food and can it themselves onsite.

There are currently more than 100 LDS home storage centers across the United States and Canada at which Church members can obtain food items for personal and family use.

The home storage centers are part of the Church’s massive welfare program that includes canneries, meat-packing facilities, thrift stores, farms, ranches, and storage facilities for food. Latter-day Saints are encouraged by Church leaders to keep a three-month supply of food on hand in case of physical, natural, and economic emergencies as part of the practice of self-reliance.

“Self-reliance is a product of our work and undergirds all other welfare practices,” President Thomas S. Monson said. “It is an essential element in our spiritual as well as our temporal well-being.”