He sure brought us all together! ;-)
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.
“Mountain House has received a huge contract from the Federal Government. Because of this contract they are not supplying their dealers with any new product until at least September 1, 2011. “
That's NOT a tinfoil headline, folks.
And Knorr isn’t expensive. Add some canned ham, and a really tasty dish is done in minutes. ;)
speaking of moths, we had an invasion of ‘pantry moths’ that lasted several months before we discovered the phermone traps (which was the ONLY thing that killed the buggers). We pulled one of those traps out and within an hour the trap was surrounded by dozens of males just waiting to get stuck to the sticky tape.
So I’d highly recommend ‘pantry moth’ traps as part of basic food storage.
(I also now deep-freeze flour, corn flour, pancake mix, beans, peas, etc for two weeks prior to dry storing so as to kill the bugs they all contain)
good one
Yup.
One of the local outlet stores(Winco) often have them on sale for 88 cents a pack.
So when they are on sale, I usually pick up ten or so and toss them in storage..
Did Michelle get priority on her order for the gourmet, organic stuff?
I’ve easily gotten more than months, by vaccuum packing my dehydrated stuff in canning jars and adding an oxygen absorber to the jar. Should easily be good for two to three years. True rice and beans are more nutritional value, longer storage life and so on, but pretty bland by themselves, throw in a cup of mixed dehydrated vetables in your rice, dried peppers in your red beans or dried onion in your white beans, or a can of spam fried up with some dehydrated onion and potatoes and you got a much more palatable dish.
He sure brought us all together! ;-)
Being able to raise rabbits or chickens would help too.
According to two distributers that I’ve been buying from for about a year or so, Mountain House was selling their goods to anyone and everyone. They had several hundred resellers carrying their products. As demand rose, none of the resellers was receiving enough product.
Mountain has chosen just a very few distributors to handle their products and now it’s a matter of building inventory between those distributors. At least that was the way it was explained to me.
Just yesterday I received parts of an order (3 cases of #10 cans) that was placed over 6 weeks ago. There was no indication of when the rest of the backorder (about 15 cases) would be filled. I have every confidence that it will be filled, the company (Emergency Essentials.com) seems to be on top of customer service, it just takes some patience.
If emergency food storage is something you have thought about, I suggest starting now. I would rather be ready years too early, instead of one day too late. It really does take some thought though, plan your work, work your plan. If you live in the country and have a garden, livestock, etc., those #10 cans are what you may need. If you live in a condo in the city, you have a whole other set of circumstances and you may want to preposition those cans in a location that you intend to bug out to when the SHTF. In that scenario, you need to have a backpack preloaded with MRE’s, first aid supplies, and other emergency supplies. You will need to have some fuel stored as well as emergency cash. There won’t be any gas stations open or ATM’s.
I’ve been stocking up on Spam lately.....and amazingly many stores here are out of that too.
So much for the recovery which is supposedly happening.
That’s “not true” now. I call BS. FEMA offers an RFI then doesn’t buy anything, yet freeze dried food is sold out for months.
Sure!
****************
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.
Oregon Freeze Dry
mark
I keep a few of their freeze dried pouches in each of my tshtf bags.
So who is buying up all of the Mountain House supplies?
Citizens who are overtaxed, paying too much at the pump, and unemployed?
You believe that they are the ones causing this shortage?
Everyone: The fact is THERE IS A SHORTAGE of these items. Obama adds a little to the fear but the point is PEOPLE ARE PREPARING FOR DECEMBER 2012. The MSM isn’t covering the story about how a huge number of people are preparing, but you see the evidence right here in the shortages.
Me and my friends.
Most grocery stores stock No. 10 cans in the institution section.
I wait for sales on smaller cans and buy what I need. A No. 10 can of beans is a whole lot of whoopie cushion.
One can also buy small freeze-dried packages of spuds, dried soups and cake mixes. I find them more sensible than No. 10 cans. I just can’t see myself baking a cake that’s 10-feet long.
Everyone's needs are different.
Common sense will help you make the right decision.
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