Survival Food – Freeze Dried & MRE

Nitro-pak has lowered pricing on the following food reserves;

• Ultimate Pak  (204 #10 cans) – Now $3998 (was $4275)

• Platinum Reserve (168 #10 cans) – Now $2998 (was $3375)

These are mixed survival food reserves mostly Mountain House freeze dried entrees and sides with some bulk oats and staples.

Freeze dried food prices increased in August 2008 when supplies were in shortage situation after heavy purchases as the price of oil went up to $140 per barrel. Freeze dried food supply eased temporarily then tightened again in October 2008 due to the global collapse of financial markets. Since then the supply has eased except for a few weeks in May 2009 due to H1N1 pandemic scare.

It seems now supply is good and prices are coming down as fear and concern over the economy has subsided.

Buying a survival food reserve bulk package can save cost if you make the right choice.

But most of that savings can be wasted if you do not get the right balance of food groups in the reserve and you have to buy more to balance it.

Nito-pak’s reserves have a good proportion of vegetables, grains, and meat, spread out over complete breakfast lunch and dinner choices. It is important that you maintain routines of your lifestyle in a disaster situation. Having regular meals can bring a lot of calm to tense situations.

Nitro-Pak has one of the best selections of survival food reserve packages for time ranges and purposes (home or office);

		***Ultimate Family Preparedness PakTM
		**Mtn. House Ultimate-Pak Food Reserve Year Supply
		**Platinum Food Reserve 4 People for 3 Mo.
		**Six Month “Gold Food Reserve”
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply – 18 Main Course Entrees
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply Entrees #2 NEW
		-Mountain House Year’s Supply Vegetable-Pak
		-Year’s Supply Food Unit, Platinum Reserve

		Group Emergency Food Reserve #1 (10 Person)
		Group Emergency Food Reserve #2 (20 Person)
		Group Emergency Food Reserve #3 (50 Person)

**”Easy Meal Security-Pak™” Food Reserve

Survival food reserves with Mountain House freeze dried food are now back to normal lead times.

A recent spike in demand due to swine flu has subsided.

It had been taking 5-10 days to process orders at some suppliers due to high volumes.

The situation during the swine flu pandemic threat was much better than May 2008.

Then survivalists worried about ‘peak oil’ collapse  caused lead times to go out to 7 to 8 weeks in some cases. Supplies of Mountain House freeze dried food were cut off to just a few online distributors at that time. Rumors circulated at that time suggested there would be as longs as a 20 week lead time on Mountain House freeze dried foods. These rumors turned out to be just rumors as the lead dropped to few days once the oil price dropped last summer.

The price of freeze dried food went up 10% to 15% at this time and has not come down since.

The lead time on freeze dried food increased again in October and November of  2008 as worries of a global economic collapse fueled rabid sales of freeze dried food. Demand remained strong till March but lead times returned to normal. I have observed during this time that when the daily stock market went up sales of freeze dried food go down and vice-versa.  It is probably not a good idea to make long term decisions on preparedness based on day to day news.

With swine flu pandemic threat arising, sales skyrocketed again causing longer lead times but this only lasted a few weeks.

Freeze dried food, which in Mountain House #10 cans can last up to 25 years is a good long term insurance policy against disasters. Threats of disaster come and go but you want to be ready when you need to be. It is best not to wait till there is a threat and lead times get long and prices go up.

Being prepared for a flu epidemic like the potential 2009 swine flu means having supplies at home for an extended period of time.

According to the US government pandemic flu website;

Store a two week supply of water and food. During a pandemic, if you cannot get to a store, or if stores are out of supplies, it will be important for you to have extra supplies on hand. This can be useful in other types of emergencies, such as power outages and disasters.

I recommend one month to 3 months worth of supplies. Based on previous epidemics there are several “waves” of infection outbreaks.  Your ability to be prepared to stay home for extended periods of time at different phases of the pandemic may be vital to you and your families’ survival.

You should be immediately prepared and have at least two weeks supply at home of food, medicine (prescription and non-prescription), and other essentials. Anything that would force you to leave your home to try to find. It will also be harder to find these items due to supply chain breakdowns during a long pandemic outbreak scenario.

Three very important points for food;

• Buy foods that are the same or similar to what you family can eat. Radical changes in diet can cause much more complications than you need in a crisis.
• Store shelves will empty within hours once it is clear that the crisis is severe,  real, and imminent,  to most of us.
• Try to get as “ready to eat” type foods as possible – you may be sick and not able to prepare foods

Fill any prescriptions you have for as long as possible. Purchase the regular medical supplies that you would consume over a 6 month period including cold and flu remedies as regular illness don’t go on holiday during a pandemic.

What foods to buy

As mentioned try not to stray far from foods your family is used to and that you know they will eat.

• Rice – most people like rice and preparation is easy as long as you have a stove. Bulk 40-50 lb bags are cheap so if you don’t need to use it the waste will not cost much
• Dry Cereals – try to stay with what your family normally eats, but healthier brands with less sugar are a better choice
• Canned meats and fish – Sardines are great and cheap if you like them.
• Canned Vegetables – Cooked is better for preparedness so they are ready to eat.
• Peanut butter – if there are no allergies.
• Water containers – I won’t spend money on bottled water, the water from you tap is good enough and you should have time to fill containers if a threat to the water supply comes into play.
• Protein and fruit bars – read the labels, make sure they are not empty calorie bars that provide no nutrition

As I mentioned above once the perceived risk level is high in the minds of a critical mass of people the store shelves will empty quickly, due to the nature of our just-in-time food supply chain. Then there will a period of time before shelves will be partially and then fully replenished.

If you want to avoid this I would suggest you shop now.

Panic could set in within a matter of hours if the situation worsens.

For proper longer term preparedness of one to six months, I recommend freeze dried food.

The main reasons are

• It lasts a long time so food will be there for a future crisis if this one, hopefully, does not materialize
• You don’t need to panic buy when a crisis hits to be prepared, you are ‘always prepared’ for 25 years
• Food reserves are ready to eat, only needing water to prepare

I just checked Nitro-Pak’s (emergency preparedness) website  and they say that as of today  “most orders will SHIP in approx. 1-3 business days. Food orders may take slightly longer.”

Nitro-pak’s owner, Harry R. Weyandt has written an interesting article on how to prepare for a depression or severe recession.

It goes beyond just food preparedness but survival food is a key element.

I have looked at a lot of preparedness & survival websites recently on this subject. I have read many articles on preparing for a depression and this article has very good advice, covers a lot, but is a quick read.

Here is a link;

How Do I Prepare for a Severe Recession/Depression?

Thanks Harry.

KT

There is a need and great value of having a food reserve for tough economic times. The chances of a depression have increased greatly since I wrote about it on September 15th, and many will experience hardships for sure.

Some are stating that if there is a depression it will not be as severe as the “Great depression” that occurred last century. Of course the same people were saying just a few weeks ago the worst of the bank troubles were behind us.

So is there need for a food reserve? What type of food reserve is the best value?

First, the need for a food reserve is greater now than in the past. At the worst part of the great depression unemployment reached a high of 25%. Anyone who read John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” will have a feel for what it was like for people in rural areas trying to survive.

However there is a big difference between now and then.  Then much of the population was rural and able to revert to a sustenance economy to get food to just barely survive the crisis. Now most of our population is urban. Most people will be totally dependent on food supplied in markets. Adding to this is the fact many foods are imported. Further, even non-perishable food is managed with tightly controlled “just in time” inventory to maximize profits. In a global crisis food imports are likely to dwindle as nations focus on self preservation. Food stock-outs will be more common. There may difficulty in getting food and prices will rise.

What food reserve is the best value?

For the same reasons that I strongly recommend freeze dried food for disasters, it is also the best value for hard economic times. It is easy to store, only needs water, no preparation or cooking required, and has long storage of up to 25 years. It can provide food insurance protection for a long time.

It is also better from a community perspective because when you buy freeze dried food you are actually increasing the future food supply for all by utilizing food available now before there is a shortage.

By having a food reserve to draw from in hard times with food shortages,  you will be able to leave food on the store shelf for those who do not have a food reserve.

A lesson from “The Grapes of Wrath” is that we all do better as a community helping each other.

Having a food reserve will enable you to make a contribution when the time comes, either by leaving food for others at the supermarket and also by sharing the reserves you have with those most in need.

An important final note is that freeze dried food while readily available now, has earlier this year experienced long lead times of 6-8 weeks, during heightened concern about high oil prices and related food price increases.

Nitro-Pak says orders with Mountain House #10 cans are now shipping 24 – 48 hours.

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Back in January I did a price comparison of cases of MRE. Below I have updated that comparison with today’s pricing. I used a Tampa Bay, FL zip code for 3 distributors that charged shipping costs depending on zip codes.

MRE is available now to order at these associated distributors;

• Nitro-Pak

• The ReadyStore

• Amazon.com

Nitro-Pak offers several food reserves but their premiere food reserve is the Ultimate-Pak™.

The Ulitmate-Pak™ is a one year supply for one person or 3 month supply for 4 people. It consists of 204 #10 cans, about half of which is Mountain House freeze dried food. FYI – #10 cans are 5/6th of a gallon restaurant size cans that most long storing food reserves come in.

The Ultimate-Pak™ supplies an average of 2440 calories per day which is above the RDA requirement and much higher than most other food reserve packages sold online.  As you can see from the analysis chart below the diet is a big breakfast, light lunch, and large dinner.

Ultimate-Pak

One thing that sticks out in this food reserve is it’s completeness and variety. It has good variety of vegetables and fiber as well as carbs and protein. There are 18 #10 cans of Nutty Breakfast Granola, 12 Cans of  6-Grain Cereal Blend, and 12 Cans of Quick Cooking Rolled Oats in the breakfast part of the reserve. This variety also lowers the average daily sodium intake that other food reserves run into trouble with (Detailed contents of the food reserve are list on Nitro-Pak’s website).

Also important is that it has 20 cans of beverage mixes, something that other food reserve packages overlook or have too little of.

The 38 cans of dinner entrees come in 18 different varieties. Having variety will help keep morale up in a stressful situation and this amount of variety is probably as much as most people eat normally. However to take advantage of this variety of entrees it will be better if you are using the food reserve for 3-4 people. Once you open a #10 can, it will last only a few weeks. So if you are using it for one person don’t expect to have cans of each of the 18 varieties open at any one time and expect the reserve to last a year.

Especially of great value is that all the contents of the food reserve are no-cooking, no-preparation foods that can be ready in a few minutes. Your time will be much more valuable in a disaster to be used in other activities than cooking meals.

Other food reserves choose lower cost raw ingredients so may have a lower average cost per #10 can, but have an enormous total cost in terms of your time.  Also a food reserve of raw ingredients instead of fully prepared Mountain House freeze dried food will require cooking equipment and energy (gas, oil, electricity)  that might not be continuously available or even desirable to use in some situations. Mountain House freeze dried food requires only water to prepare the food. If hot water is available so much the better but it is not necessary to have anything else other than water.

The Nitro-Pak supplied contents (indicated by “NP”) of the food reserve that are not Mountain House freeze dried food will have a shorter shelf life than 25 years. Most of these NP items being sealed in #10 cans will have 10-15 years shelf life. However items such as the breakfast grains mentioned above are items you can consume periodically (8 -10 years) and re-order with the cost not being much more than what you would buy from the grocery store. As indicated in the chart above all these “NP” items are also instant no-preparation foods other than adding water or hot water which is what makes the food reserve so useful.

Overall I can easily say that the Ultimate-Pak™ food reserve from Nitro-Pak offers the most complete food reserve online and has the highest value of food reserves I have looked at to date.

The ReadyStore is forecasting an increase of 30% on September 1st, 2008 for #10 cans of Mountain House freeze dried food. The notice on their website says this is a mandatory increase for all retailers so it sounds like all will be affected.

Previously Nitro-Pak, forecasted 15% increase in Mountain House #10 cans on August 1st. Prices did go up, but for food reserves which have a mix of other food the observed increase was about 7-8%.

Nitro-Pak has stated a further increase of 5% would occur on September 1st.

Some of the increase can be attributed to higher food costs, but I wonder if the heightened demand caused by survivalists buying on speculation of nearness of the economic collapse they predict has played a major role.

According to the ReadyStore‘s comment “If you haven’t placed your order, now is the time!” it appears if you place your order before September 1st, you can avoid the price increase.