Sep 13 2008
Mountain House #10 Cans Shipping Next Day
Nitro-Pak says orders with Mountain House #10 cans are now shipping 24 - 48 hours.
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Sep 12 2008
Mountain House Web Site selling #10 cans Again
Mountain House has resumed selling #10 cans on their website.
Almost all varieties except a few like Turkey Tetrazzini and Chili Macaroni with Beef were being sold in long shelf life #10 cans.
Mountain House had stopped selling #10 cans on their own site back in May and limited supply to a few major distributors.
With the price of oil dropping below $100 today for the first time in 5 months from a peak of over $140 a barrel, much of the huge demand created by worried survivalists has subsided - for now.
Aug 23 2008
Factory Tour - Mountain House #10 cans
Here is a YouTube video showing Oregon Freeze Dry, the makers of Mountain House brand of freeze dried foods, filling, sealing and packing #10 cans. Not sure when the video was taken there is no indication of date.
Aug 16 2008
Review - The “Ultimate-Pak™” Years Supply Food Reserve
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
| Food Reserve Name | Ultimate-Pak (TM) |
|---|---|
| Price (Aug 16, 2008) | $4275 |
| Quantity of #10 Cans | 204 |
| Calories Per Day | 2440 |
| Cost Per #10 Can | $20.96 |
| Cost Per Person Day (365 days) | $11.71 |
| Quantity of Mountain House #10 Cans | 103 |
| Quantity of "Non-Instant" Raw Ingredients | 0 |
| Qty #10 Cans Breakfast Main Dish | 59 |
| Qty #10 Cans Breakfast Side Dishes | 10 |
| Qty #10 Cans Lunch Dishes | 22 |
| Qty #10 Cans Mountain House Dinner Entrees | 38 |
| Qty #10 Cans Dinner Side Dishes | 24 |
| Qty #10 Cans Vegetables | 18 |
| Qty #10 Cans Dinner Desserts | 10 |
| Qty #10 Cans Instant Beverages | 20 |
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.
Aug 15 2008
Mountain House #10 Can Price Increase - ReadyStore says 30%
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.
Jul 31 2008
Mountain House #10 Can Update Letter
I just received the email notification from Mountain House below, confirming only 3 online dealers are being supplied, Nitro-Pak, The ReadyStore, and Emergency Essentials;
Updated: 7/31/2008
Dear Valued Customers:
This is an update on Oregon Freeze Dry’s #10 can situation. Because sales remain high, we continue to be unable to meet all #10 can needs. OFD is continuing to allocate as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well.
We are able to meet demand for Mountain House pouches and most of these products are available for purchase on our website. For a list of locations where you can purchase #10 cans, which should enable you to obtain product from reputable dealers NOW, or at least in the very near future…click hereWe also want to again clarify inaccurate information we’ve seen on the Internet. This situation is not due to sales to the government domestically or in Iraq. The reason for this decision is solely due to an unprecedented sales spike in #10 cans sales.
We expect this situation to be necessary into 2009. 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.
Sincerely,
OREGON FREEZE DRY INC.
CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT
1-800-547-0244
The 3 online distributors on the list Mountain House provided are;
- Nitro-Pak
- The ReadyStore
- Emergency Essentials
Jul 24 2008
The ReadyStore has Mountain House #10 Cans
One further update on Mountain House #10 Cans availability, I called The ReadyStore customer service and they confirmed they too have regular supply.
The lead time listed on their website is 3-6 weeks.
The customer service representative from The ReadyStore said shipments of individual Mountain House #10 cans, cases of 6 #10 cans, and the freeze dried food reserve packages were all shipping in that range and will continue to be available.
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Jul 23 2008
Mountain House #10 Cans ARE AVAILABLE
I have seen reports on various sites that say that Mountain House will not be selling #10 cans on their website until the end of 2009.
This statement is correct.
I called Mountain House customer service and they confirmed this is the case. An updated notice should appear on their website soon.
However it was also being said that dealers only had limited supply of Mountain House #10 cans and after that dealers could be out of stock for as long as 20 weeks!
The above statement is not correct!
Mountain House customer service confirmed that they would continue to supply their TOP DEALERS.
The supply is limited and on allocation to these dealers due to high demand.
I called Nitro-Pak customer service and they confirmed that they will continue to take orders and shipping lead times are at present 2-4 weeks and will continue into the foreseeable future. This applies to #10 cans sold by themselves and special food reserve packages.
However since the supply of #10 cans from Mountain House is on limited allocation to dealers, if demand increases even more, the lead times will only get longer.
However you will still get freeze dried food in #10 cans if and when you order from their dealers, the question is just on how long it will take to get delivery.
Jun 11 2008
Freeze Dried Food Allocation and Pricing Update
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.
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