Posted on 04/05/2011 8:48:26 PM PDT by blam
Freeze Dried Food Distributor: Six Month Wait Time Amid Extreme Shortages
Author: Mac Slavo
April 5th, 2011
If there was ever a sentiment indicator for economic uncertainty and fear, this would be it.
As of April 2011, major distributors of freeze dried food, namely the Mountain House brand, are indicating that shoppers should expect delays of nearly six months on any orders placed today:
***CURRENT INVENTORY UPDATE AS OF 04/05/11*** All Mountain House & Nitro-Pak food storage #10 cans are in EXTREMELY HIGH DEMAND due to national & world current economic uncertainty and inflation fears. With this increase in demand, our food order processing times have greatly increased also. As Mountain House’s leading distributor, we are receiving HUGE shipments WEEKLY to fill our customer orders, but demand exceeds the available supply. Most Mountain House dealers have been been cut off & receive no food, period. Supplies are VERY SCARCE. Like Disneyland, the line is long but still slowly moving. Please be patient. This is a line you do not want to get out of!
…
All canned food orders and units may take up to 160 days to ship. Thank you for your business!
Source: Nitro-Pak
Other large distributors we contacted indicated similar shipping delays, with many simply marking their freeze dried food inventory as completely “out of stock.”
Mountain House has advised they are expanding their production facilities, but this upgrade will not be completed until the third of fourth quarter of 2011.
When we first covered the shortages of freeze dried food in December of 2010, a spokesperson for Mountain House, the largest freeze dried food manufacturer in the world, indicated that they were estimating the shortage to abate by February or March of 2011. In February, we received an update from Mountain House, which further pushed out the availability date to the Summer of 2011, and feedback from the largest freeze dried food distributors indicated shipping delays of 30 – 60 days. This most recent alert suggests that while freeze dried food manufacturers are working round the clock, demand for emergency supplies continues to sky rocket at an unmanageable pace.
Economic uncertainty, fear of inflation, government policies, natural disasters and the mysteries surrounding the 2012 doomsday date have been cited as the primary reasons for the parabolic spike in demand over the course of the last six months.
Because there will likely be no relief for any of those fears in the near future, we suggest to our readers that demand will continue to increase well into 2012, and question whether the new facilities being built for freeze dried food production will be enough to offset demand. As more people come to the realization that things may not be exactly as they seem, further demand will likely flood the market going forward.
Due to the uncertainty in the freeze dried food market, those concerned with acquiring quality, long-term food storage should consider and act on other options.
As we’ve suggested previously, dehydrated foods and MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) are one option that remains available at major emergency food distributors. The other options would be to self-stock and package dry goods, like the 11 Emergency Food items that can last a lifetime, including wheat, rice and beans. Most have a shelf life of 20 – 30 years and provide a well balanced, nutritious diet in the event of an emergency, widespread disaster or protracted crisis.
Do you have links to those videos?
ping
bttt
Are any of you actually opening up some of this food once in a while?
I find less and less pieces of actual food in cans of soup for instance, and what is in there probably came from China.
Bump!
I've tried the freeze dried ice cream and bacon. Both were excellent.
There are a lot of them so all you do is use search words like foodsaver, mylar, bags, dehydrate etc.
Tell me about asparagus. Can starters be purchased so that you don’t have to wait the several years for them to mature? I’m putting in a square foot garden and would love to get some going but am impatient. :) And butternut squash - have you ever tried deep fried squash chips? They are out of this world. So good I wonder why restaurants have not served them. Just slice thin, toss with cayenne and nutmeg (or whatever you want), deep fry for a few minutes, most of the oil stays in the fryer, serve with sour cream and salt. We don’t deep fry many things, but we always deep fry that.
I wish I knew about the asparagus but this is the first I’ve tried to grow it. I bought what is said to be 3 year old plants from the feed store so hopefully we will get some this year, we’ll see.
We love butternut squash soup but never tried deep fried chips. I’ll have to try them, thanks for the tip. I can never keep chips in the house bc DH never seems to get his fill.
Good luck on your square foot garden too, I think we will all be grateful to have them this year.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.