Freeze Dried & MRE - Survival Food

Barack Obama recently commented on the “global food crisis”. Here is an excerpt from transcript of a June 10th, 2008 Q&A session;

I think that we’ve got to stockpile food reserves at a global level more effectively than we have in the past. Those stockpiles have shrunk considerably. And finally, we’re going to have to deal with increasing energy costs, which are having an impact on overall food production and cost. So this is going to be long challenge, and is something that an Obama administration is going to monitor closely and take aggressive action.

(See full transcript from Lynn Sweet Chicago Sun Times -Obama June 10, 2008 availability. Transcript)

His reference to “more effectively” stockpiling food essentially means having food produced and stored regionally to avoid excessive freight costs moving food in emergency situations from one geography to another.

Having food stockpiles in the countries most likely to have a crisis could also have the added benefit of stabilizing production and pricing, but don’t tell that to any “free market economics” zealots still clinging to their “jaded by reality” philosophy.

The cost of freight being excessive is especially true when food is air lifted half way across the globe from the US to wherever it is needed, now even more so with high fuel costs.

One way to offset the cost of airfreight is to store freeze dried food as a reserve for domestic emergency purposes for it’s long shelf properties. When a crisis occurs elsewhere in the world requiring food to be made available immediately, it will be much more economical to ship the light “water removed” freeze dried food since it is has 98% of the water, and thus the weight removed.

For air freight, weight is a much more significant factor in cost than it is for land or sea freight which is not likely to be used if the situation is urgent.

Water to hydrate the freeze dried food can be brought in locally at lower freight costs than the cost of food with water in it being shipped from a regional facility.

The superior shelf life of freeze dried food will also limit the loss and waste that occurs from the time food is pulled from storage through it’s distribution, till the time it is actually consumed by those who need it.

Shipping lead times on Mountain House #10 cans of freeze dried have come down to just 2 to 4 weeks from previous 3 -7 weeks.

orders with #10 canned foods or units are taking 2 to 4 weeks to ship.

I noticed a further update on Nitro-pak’s website;

IMPORTANT SHIPPING NOTE: Do to current market conditions, huge customer demand, worldwide food shortages and tight supplier allocations (most of our competitors have been totally cut off by the factory), orders will ship in approximately 3 to 4 Weeks from receipt and will be shipped in the order we receive them. We are receiving limited stock weekly. Don’t delay ordering. The longer you wait, the longer the line is getting. Sorry. Just being up front & honest.
Your charge card WILL NOT be charged until 3-5 days prior to shipping.
Thanks you for your patience!

This does not contain any new information other than “competitors being cut off” whatever that means, and I am checking what the status at other online retailers.

Mountain House website is still saying they are not directly selling #10 cans of freeze dried food, the statement there says;

We regret to inform you Oregon Freeze Dry cannot satisfy all Mountain House #10 can orders and we have removed #10 cans from our website temporarily. The reason for this is sales of #10 cans have continued to increase. OFD is allocating as much production capacity as possible to this market segment…..We expect this situation to be necessary for several months although this isn’t a guarantee. We will update this information as soon as we know more. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We sincerely hope you will continue to be Mountain House customers in the future.

I think the panic buying we have been seeing by survivalist driven consumers, caused by worry about the manifestation of “peak oil theory”, will ease off if the price of oil goes down $15 to $20 or so soon. However it will be some time before the availability of freeze dried food will improve and prices will go down. If the price of oil goes up much more, then the demand for freeze dried food will likely spike exponentially higher unfortunately.

As mentioned in a previous post, Mountain House #10 cans are still available at Nitro-Pak and other online retailers but the lead times have increased to 3-7 weeks.

Today I noticed that the Mountain House #10 can individual entrees and 6 can cases had disappeared from Nitro-Pak’s website.

The mountain house freeze dried food reserves, year’s supply, variety packs, and group food reserve units were still there and on sale but with aforementioned 3-7 week lead times.

I called Nitro-pak and spoke with Lisa in customer service. I confirmed that they were still shipping food reserve packages listed above but they have temporarily stopped selling the individual #10 can entrees and cases to devote all allocated supply to their food reserve packages and 6 can cases.

Lisa said they hoped to resume those sales by June 15th. So there is no need to panic.

You can still buy Mountain House food reserves packages now at the 3-7 week lead time.