Sources for dehydrated ingredients other than Amazon – and preferably Mpls MN

Try searching with “bulk dehydrated food” or “bulk dehydrated ingredients” via your search engine of choice.  I’ve bought from several companies because I have special requirements for foods, but I’ve been pleased with most everything I’ve gotten.  Tons of options online; I’ve no idea about your local options, though.

Point your browser to MaryJanes Farms and follow the links in the home page.

Huh. I hadn’t tried the specific search term, “bulk dehydrated ingredients.” That actually narrows the search to the kind of sites I can check out pretty quickly.

Glad that it helped.  I’ve found that the trick with searching is to be as general as possible in my ideas, and as specific as possible when I search for them.  That’s an awkward description, but it’s accurate.

Mary Jane’s looks AWESOME.  I’m filling up the cart already.  Thanks for that lead!!

I have not found any Mary Jane’s soup or dinner entree I do not like.  Her oatmeal is pretty good too.

Honeyville has some high quality FD products that I’ve been very happy with. I like their meats (particularly the diced ham), veggies and fruit.

Wow! Visited the Honeyville shopping site and while I didn’t spend a lot of time searching, I could not find a single item that was in stock!  Another pandemic casualty I suppose.

Mary Jane Farm seems like a great alternative to pre-packaged/FD meal but holy cow they are expensive.  $43 for 3 lbs of dried black bean flakes? Buy that twice and you’ve paid more than you would for my dehydrator of choice.  3 lbs of beans cost less than $3 at the grocer.  I bet even dehydrating canned beans would be orders of magnitude cheaper.  Yeah, it’s more work, but you end up with exactly the meal you want.

Harmony House

Mexicali Rose for beans

Santa Fe Bean Company

Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice

Near East Couscous

Dehydrated Hummus

$43 for 3 lbs of dried black bean flakes?

3 lbs of beans cost less than $3 at the grocer.

How many pounds of prepared beans does it take to make three pounds of dried bean flakes?

The cost of most pre-packaged backpacking food is a bit prohibitive, so I opted to go with backcountryfoodie.com also for really great food that I tailor to my liking, and $400 later have lots of dry ingredients. It’s just that I got a bug in my shorts to find stuff locally or cheaper than Amazon (again), and other than pickup up this-and-that at local-ish co-ops Amazon has been a central location to shop.

I found n0-sodium Herb-Ox dehydrated chicken bullion quite a bit cheaper until shipping costs kicked in. We use Amazon Prime for a lot of stuff, even at the heavy subscription cost, so I guess it averages out.

How many pounds of prepared beans does it take to make three pounds of dried bean flakes?

No idea really, but for the math to come out even it would be 14.33 lbs of dry beans (14.33 x $3 = $43).

I’m not trying to be negative about anyone’s food choices, but simply pointing out that if cost is any significant element of your personal equation, dehydrating your own starts looking pretty good.  And also answers the question of where to source ingredients :)

I don’t know if you have a BigLots but I am amazed at the selection of items they have that is perfect for backpacking. The products are not short dated and there is a savings over the grocery store. This is where I tend to purchase granola, dried fruit, pasta and soup mixes, instant potatoes, etc..

I’ve bought some bulk dehydrated food from Winco.  I’m sure some other grocery stores are the same.

Arg. Another web site, $10-ish for 2 dehydrated bouillon jars, $10-ish for shipping.

Try the Eastside Food Co-op or anywhere you can buy in bulk. Usually cheaper plus you can buy a small amount to see if you like it.

I’ve used Hoosier Hill Farm products quite a bit. Lots of good dairy powder mixes etc. They were also very generous in helping me return an order that stalled at the Canadian border when customs wanted to charge 250% duty on my bulk order.

https://www.cocobeeandnut.com/

Unless they’re small, $10/2 jars of good bouillon is pretty good; that’s enough for a few quarts of stock, and good stock is not cheap (unless you make it yourself).

If you have the time, it seems like making things yourself might be more palatable to you.

Interesting info from Mary Jane’s Farm; now we know how many pounds of beans equates to a pound of bean flakes…

We take raw beans which are around 10% moisture, soak them, cook them, flakify and dry them down to approx. 5% moisture.  In those terms it takes 1 lb of raw beans to make about 1/2 lb of flakes.  Like taking a piece of fruit and dehydrating it to where it is shelf stable. 

So there we have it…a 2:1 ratio.  And then there’s the sourcing, prep, washing, soaking, cooking, flakifying – which is totally a word, now – dehydrating and packaging, which accounts for a slight bit of the monies.

If you are looking for goods to rehydrate (freeze dried)  check out https://www.thrivelife.com/shop  Lots of variety and great tasting.

Before the pandemic http://beprepared.com was my go to site for bulk freeze dried in #10 cans. At one point they would test the waters with items not usually found like: salmon, shrimp, crab (I wished I purchased more than 1 can!), cauliflower, squash, carrots. Nowadays, all I really see are mainstream common meat and vegetables items everyone sells and at inflated prices.

I buckled and purchased sodium-free bullion from Amazon: 2 x 3.3 oz chicken for $13 USD and same in beef for $16 USD.  These would go for about $3 – $5 more per jar if I could find them locally. Trouble is Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Jubilee, Lunds, Cub do not carry sodium free except in the expensive individual packets and that doesn’t fit either with pre-making my meals.

Ah well. I pay big bucks for tarps, cordage, shoes, and everything else that saves weight.

Addendum: Walmart will sell me 12 jars at about $3.50 each, but I don’t need 12 jars for as long as I can forcast.