Availability of Freeze Dried Foods

As you may know, it's difficult to purchase freeze-dried food in #10 cans these days.  The websites I've been to all have some or most of their #10 cans on backorder,  both Mountain House and Provident Pantry.  I assume the same is true of other brands.  Apparently, the demand for freeze-dried and dehydrated foods is increasing faster then the supply can respond.  Here's what Mountain House says about it.

On the one had, it's good that--apparently--so many people are preparing.  On the other hand, this makes getting your food preps in store harder.

However, all is not lost.  I've noticed that both Emergency Essentials and Disaster Necessities will backorder these items for you.  You'll just have to wait for them.  (I should note that I have no experience with Disaster Necessities.  I recently placed an order with them--for backordered items--but I haven't received it yet.  No, I'm not abandoning Emergency Essentials, I just wanted to try another supplier.)

While you're waiting for backordered freeze-dried food, you can stock up on canned goods and other products that store well, from Costco, Walmart, or whatever store is in your area.  And don't forget non-food items, such as soap, toilet paper, etc.

I also noticed that Emergency Essentials is out of, and back ordering, their 55-cal water barrels.  So it looks like people are storing water, too.  Storing water is very important, especially for people living in dry areas.  We need water even more than we need food, although water is usually easier to find.  But it must be CLEAN water.  Dirty water can kill you.  So it's a good idea to store some way to clean dirty water.

I recently joined Costco again after being away for several years.  I was happy to see that they have 12-packs of many canned goods at reasonable prices.  And big bags of rice and other staples.  Personally, I'd want to repackage rice or other staples that are in burlap bags, so they have a longer shelf life.

Many food-storage types talk about storing food (rice, beans, wheat, etc.) for up to 20 years.  But that isn't really necessary.  Ideally, you want to be storing foods that you and your family like to eat, and be regularly eating those foods from your storage.  When you buy more, you put it in the back of your current stock and use the oldest things first.  So you don't need to store something for 20 years.  If you have a year's worth of food stored, you might have things no older than a couple years, because you're constantly cycling through it.

Besides, who wants to store food for 20 years?  If there's no disaster, you've wasted your money.  But if you're buying and storing food you eat all the time anyway, and you're cycling through your stored food, your money is never wasted.

I would argue, though, that convenience foods stored in cardboard should be re-packaged in some way to make them both more airtight and less available to pests.  You DON'T want mice eating all your stored food.

Good luck, and happy food storing!