You can find these at bakeries, ice cream manufacturers and parlors, large restaurants or kitchens, or food processing plants. If you get used buckets, only use buckets you know have already been used to store food and haven't been used for anything else. So, how do you find buckets that are safe for you to use for the foods you want to pack yourself? If you are going to buy them new, ask the company who is selling them. HDPE plastic is slightly porous and will absorb these chemicals which will gradually leach back into any food you place in the bucket later. And lastly, when something is put in the bucket that is a nonfood type product such as paint, chemicals, and such things, this also makes them so they are no longer food grade. And sometimes the bucket manufacturer uses recycled HDPE. Sometimes the bucket has a dye added to the plastic that is not food grade This alone will prevent the FDA from approving it as food grade.
Most of these buckets are food grade but there are times when they are not. The #2 means it is made from HDPE plastic. But rather it tells what kind of plastic the bucket is made of. This number doesn't mean that it's food grade as many people suppose. All the buckets I have ever seen have a #2. Most plastic containers, usually on the bottom, will have a number inside a small triangle. Most of the controversy rages over whether a bucket is food grade or not. There is a lot of misinformation out there about plastic buckets.