Dehydrated food shortage looming?

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Will the COVID 19 hoarders turn next to backpacking dehydrated food?

Hopefully the vendors will limit purchases, recognizing them for what they are, merely the “I got mine. You get yours.” mentality.

[Matthew / BPL]

I’m pretty sure backpacking food was in short supply weeks ago. I don’t know how long that will be the case but a friend mentioned he was “looking for jetboil food on REI and Amazon” (His words, not mine) and that it was all gone. This was about 2–3 weeks ago.

[Ken Larson]

Placed a order for some meals with Peak Refuel on 4March and received them on the 17March2020. After a inquiry to them they replied “Due to recent increase in demand our website is currently out of stock.” I believe it is presently on going.

[Gary Dunckel]

I’m good on FD and dehydrated foods. I started ‘hoarding’ 5-7 years ago, and I’ve repackaged meal-size portions from Mountain House #10 tins and bulk Harmony House stuff. Plus, I always keep 6-8 1-gallon jugs of water in the cool basement. I’m pretty good at being a ‘prepper’ hermit.

[Greg Mihalik]

I know how to cook and I’ve got a food dryer.  I’m good.

[Nick Gatel]

[Jerry Adams]

I ordered some dehydrated food from amazon, delivery in a few days

I’m borderline on hoarding.  Maybe I can repackage it and give portions to neighbors : )

[d k]

+1 to Greg’s statement.

[Sam C]

I dunno.  Now is around the time thru-hiking begins so is it possible that supplies are low due to that?  Survivalists may be stocking up but I seriously doubt that anyone who rushed out to hoard toilet paper (that is, most Americans) even know this stuff exists.

When it comes to food items in general, I am pretty sure that Mountain House et. al. do low volume by comparison in general.

[Gary Dunckel]

I checked the Mountain House (located in Albany, OR) web site, and also that of theepicenter.com (located just down the road in Eugene, OR), and they both are pretty much out of products. I know that Mountain House supplies the U. S. Government for emergency food supplies, like for the Cheyenne Mountain underground bunker near Colorado Springs. This complex is where they would house the President, senators, and cabinet members in the event of a nuclear war. I can imagine that the Government might have bought everything those companies had in stock. You know, for a just-in-case scenario.

Sam, there are a lot of preppers that know about FD foods, and there are several web sites catering to those people.

[Chris R]

OK, a load of folk who already have high blood pressure will be eating food loaded with even more salt and taking even less exercise than normal. What’s the worse that could happen.

[Brady F]

My family runs a local outdoor retail shop (but most sales are online through Amazon) and they saw like a 400-500% increase in Mountain House Sales over just a couple days starting around March 15th, and now they’re backordered on a lot of items. Seems like it’s pretty much already happening.

[Ken Larson]

[Bill in Roswell]

The local REIs were sold out by the time they shut down Mar. 22. Outfitterns on the AT were also out (Mountain Crossings). This is a great time to get into dehydrating my own!

Cheers and be safe,
Bill in Roswell GA

[David Thomas]

“OK, a load of folk who already have high blood pressure will be eating food loaded with even more salt and taking even less exercise than normal. What’s the worse that could happen.”

ChrisR, I can assure you that they are also seeing their physician less often than usual.  I know this through my MD wife, all her partners, hospital docs, MD friends in the cities, and my lab director fishing/hunting buddy.  Patients and physicians are delaying office visits and blood draws for routine issues, understandably, due to COVID-19 concerns.

I’m not sure this is the best policy for April and maybe even in May.  Yes, it avoids possible exposures they’d have if they came in.  But their diabetes, high blood pressure and congestive heart failure aren’t getting any better.  Not keeping them “tuned up”, I fear, could leave them more vulnerable to COVID-19 when they contract it.

[James Marco]

Yeah, Mountain House et al are great survival foods for lazy folk generally. The trouble is a 6month supply is going to cost like hell. Assuming $4 for a plate of scrambled eggs, $4 for some sort of lunch, $7 for some sort of supper, and $4 for a snack over the course of a day, this adds up to $19/day. Depending on your choices you could pay a lot more or less.  About $133 per week (not counting food inflation in the later months of this thing) per person. The current average is around $250/month. Dehydrated foods cost about $580, or, around double.

Nutritional value of these meals is rather hit or miss. Most are about the original, but have more salt and spices. Many flavours/spices loose intensity when dried. Salt is an easy way to replace this. Hot stuff also covers up a multitude of sins as we know…it is a favorite on the trail. Fresh vitamins can be lost with long term usage. Unless you work out 4 out of 7 days, you are likely getting more calories than you need to get the vitamins/minerals in your diet.

Yes, they are certainly strained right now. There are a few available immediatly, https://www.rei.com/product/722472/mountain-house-chili-mac-with-beef-pro-pak-2-servings?CAWELAID=120217890000832444&cm_mmc=PLA_Google&product_id=7224720016&ad_type=pla_with_promotion&channel=online&partition_id=449344448326&target_id=pla-449344448326&brand_flag=&adgroup_id=15724606000&campaign_id=180122080&location_physical=9005779&cid=52774011400&network=g&network_type=search&device_type=c&merchant_id=1209243&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIucGsl9jO6AIVh5-fCh2CbwisEAQYAyABEgJTHfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Others…

They do not seem to be shutting down, I think they are at peak production and require an expansion of facilities for more…something they are reluctant to do with a declining base population.

 

[Chris R]

Switching to online consultation with doctors here on Manitoba, doesn’t help with a proper check up though. I do seem to be seeing more folk walking and running locally but it’s likely that these are folk who are already leading quite healthy lives. There is a long history of preserving food here. We have have canned tomatoes, plums and rhubarb plus we still have potatoes from last season in our cold store so won’t be turning to the camping meals yet.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Shortage? If you can garden, you can dehydrate a year’s worth this summer.

As for those who stocked up…they were NOT stocking up in March. They were stocking up last year, or the year before…or at minimun…back in December when the first news came out of China. Just pointing that out.

*Cough*

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Thankfully I am both a farmer AND a hiker…who was written many a cookbook and developed many recipes in her career. So for me, eating dried goods is pretty easy.

https://www.neverfreefarm.com/tag/pantry-staples/ Our homesteading blog has seen a huge increase in readership in the past month.

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