Jim:
I just came from a Costco in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. I spotted an interesting item on the end cap near the bread isle, 275 servings of individual food packs in a white plastic bucket. 20 year shelf life. Just boil in water for 20 minute. It has the same packaging that you’d expect from a vendor like Ready Made Resources. This from a food packaging company out of Orem, Utah. The price for 275 servings is $109.99. It is labeled ‘Survival Food’, item #104893 so you may want to inquire at your Costco.
In each bucket there are 55 individual 5 serving packs–sort of misleading when on the bucket it says 275 servings but each pack is for one day. Here are the specifications and ingredients:
premixed, seasoned
vitamin, mineral fortified
100% vegetarian–(except whey milk and pancakes)soy used in lieu of meat
Barley Vegetable
Blueberry pancakes
Ala King
Cacciatore
Country Noodle
Corn Chowder
PotatoBa-Kon
Rice Lentil
Western Stew
Whey Milk
The weight of the bucket is 25 lb., 2 oz. It looks really well put together. – Jason in Idaho
JWR Replies: The quality of the product is not in question, but Costco’s marketing is. A bit of Internet research revealed that this product is currently the target of a class action lawsuit. (Scroll down to Page 5 of the suit papers for details.) The product is advertised as a “3 month food supply for one person.” The problem is that if you do the math, it works out to just 455 calories per day! With 2,000 calories as a scant daily minimum per the USDA, they are overstating the period of supply period by a factor of nearly five times. (The LDS Church’s informative website www.providentliving.org contains a suggested food list that provides 2,800 calories per day.) I’m not saying that it is a bad product. Just figure that you will need five times as much as Costco advertises. OBTW, because of this lawsuit, I wouldn’t be surprised if the product is dropped by Costco. In case it is, here is the contact info for the food packing company: Food for Health International
www.nutristorage.com Phone: 801-765-4663 (In Utah, naturlich, where the majority of the long term storage food canners in the country are located.) Perhaps folks might want to stock up.
Some might conclude that Attorney Pope may just be aiming a suit at “deep pockets.” I’ll withhold any judgment or editorializing about this, only to say that all that I would have done was to write Costco a polite letter and asked them to re-state their marketing claims and re-label their packaging.