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.
Bam Bam breeds confidence, eh?
ping
Bam Bam breeds confidence, eh?
Unfortunately his supporters “breed”.
I am fuzzy on this because listening to ‘Coast to Coast’ radio at night means snoozing off and on, lol, but I am pretty sure I heard the host asking a guest about ‘why the Homeland Security dept has ordered up something like 400,000,000 emergency food supplies. Did I dream this or miss a discussion of it here on FR?
I heard that Mountain House is no longer selling to retail customers...
They are selling to the government, now.
A friend told me that it's true...I don't know any details.
Here, I found this:
Alert: FEMA Stocking up on 140 Million Pre-packaged meals
Terror Threats Rising As FEMA Orders $1 Billion In Dehydrated Food
I am pretty sure I heard the host asking a guest about ‘why the Homeland Security dept has ordered up something like 400,000,000 emergency food supplies.
I heard the same thing.
PING!!
My free Preparedness Manual can be downloaded from:
http://www.tomeaker.com/kart/preparedness1h.pdf
It contains information showing how you can dehydrate and store your own dehydrated food which you can often do cheaper than some of the products avaiable from vendors.
Here's what's posted on the Mountain House site:
Dear Valued Customers:
In response to the recent concern of FEMA purchasing Mountain House products:
FEMA posted the following RFI (Request for Information) on 1-20-2011. In the RFI, FEMA was asking for information for 14M/day for 10 days. They then withdrew the RFI on 1-27-11. The RFI is a request for information only. It is not an order. In addition, this RFI was never sent to Mountain House. This is to confirm that Mountain House is not supplying FEMA or any other Government agency with Mountain House #10 cans or pouches.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores pre-packaged commercial meals to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for meals in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations.
As you know 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, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well.
Currently our inventory for both cans and pouches is all being shipped to our retailers. Once all of our retailers are back in stock 100%, we will put items back in stock on our own website. For our #10 cans, we do have a small number of dealers that you can contact for future ordering of our food storage items. Although they are not taking any orders at this time, we do suggest you contact them to see how you can be notified as soon as they are in a position to once again accept new orders. For a list of those dealers, please contact us at MH-Info@ofd.com
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 just bought a box of 20 meals of Mountain House from a display at Costco in Phoenix. The display was quite large.
Earlier this evening there was a video from the wife of a Wal-Mart Executive that said food prices will double within 2 weeks, but the video was pulled.
I found this posted on
http://www.thewatermanfiles.prepperpodcast.com/
Article linked as source is from USA today - CEO of Wal-Mart
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-03-30-wal-mart-ceo-expects-inflation_N.htm
Food Prices To Seriously Rise
U.S. consumers face “serious” inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, according to the head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations.
Also on that page is a table of food and commodity increases over the past month, year, and year to date change.
Thank you for providing your preparadness manual, Kartographer. You’re to be commended.
I think it will double but it won’t be in 2 weeks, it will hit after the processing season this summer. Most non-fresh food is from last summer’s pack at last summer’s price.
Wal-Mart CEO Warns Of Serious Inflation In The Coming Months
Any idea the real reason the government picked this timing to create a shortage of freeze dried powdered eggs?
And on this web page - it is interesting how they posted this info.
http://www.yourfoodstorage.com/freeze-dried-entress
“Mountain House has received a huge contract from the Federal Government. Because of this contract they are not supplying thier dealers with any new product until at least September 1, 2011. “
No Idea about the timing...your idea is as good as mine. Fortunately, I managed to get all I want/need before the rush.
That’s pure BS, according to Mountain House.
Where does this crap come from?
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