http://www.costco.com/service/Featurepag...rketingItemName

That's food for 4 people for 9 months for $3,200 after discount.

Same sales pitch as every other preparedness site on the net - http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_FS%20Y310_A_name_E_Year%20Supply%20of%20Basics. I'm not sure that this constitutes either a gimmick or preying on fears - some folks will buy what is intended as a one year last ditch emergency food supply. The benefit of the Costco package is that it seems to reflect more of the type of foods that your average Costco shopper is more likely to purchase and eat. I'm more of a whole grain guy myself... Most folks wouldn't put on weight on either regimen, their teenagers will rebel and eat them at some point in the year, this is last ditch stuff.

While the idea that you can live on just what's in those buckets for 9-months is gimmicky, I wouldn't write the entire thing off.

The stuff has a shelf life of 20+ years if stored properly. One could essentially buy it, store it, forget about it, and yet always have some food on hand. If you live in an area that is prone to disasters/emergencies (or simply very remote), it might not be such a bad idea.

Even if you end up tossing most of it out after 20 years, you've only spent ~$160 a year....which I don't really consider a huge loss.

I just can't imagine anybody buying it. Yeah, there's the arguments about how it's not such a loss, but who has actually wrote that check for $3,200?

I think it's a good business for making money if people are buying this stuff. The need for customer service is rather low. Few people, if any, are going to hold you up to your promise that the food will last for 20 years. After 10 years or so, the buyer probably won't have receipts or will have some life changing event that makes the buyer all but forget he bought this stuff. Further, the company could be long gone after 5 years or so, after making a fortune.

I'm missing something here on the complaint.... you are getting oats, rice, pasta, potatoes sealed in a foil pouch, with oxygen absorbers for less than $.26 per foil pouch... the oxygen absorbers alone are $.12 ea. from LDS...

I'm confused, not complaining. I'm wondering who has actually bought it. Some people here are pontificating it's not a bad deal, but did $3,200 of your money actually go out of your bank to buy this kind of thing? That's not a rhetorical question.

Apparently a lot of people have been buying, as Mountain House had a shortage of freeze dried meals a while back due to people placing bulk orders like this. For a little while they weren't accepting any more orders.

There has been a surge in large scale prepping lately, mostly thanks to events like Katrina, the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami, and the whole 2012 Mayan Apocalypse thing. You've got more people building bunkers and bomb shelters now than any time since the Cold War. If you're taking the time and money to build your own bunker, stocking it with $3,200 worth of food is a relatively minor expense.

Me, I probably wouldn't buy it. That's not to say it's bad, only that I have a lot more food options and energy resources than city dwellers.

The just-add-water meals might have a secondary use as backpacking or camping cuisine. Just add protein.

A lot of people spend more on an annual vacation. In unsettled times, a package like this might bring some people a lot more relaxation and peace of mind than broiling on an overpriced beach.

Having a major, mainstream retailer carry this sort of thing makes it ... mainstream, as opposed to fringe. Perhaps it gets a useful message out, getting people thinking and talking about some basic preparations for the unexpected.

And of course, given the bulk discount, you could buy one and split the cost with a few relatives or neighbours for a 30-day supply.

20-30 year shelf life is reasonable if the food is left in a cool place and undisturbed. Things like grains can last quite a while. I have stocked some rice, wheat, barley and legumes and am still eating my way through the first 5 lbs of each, except rice which I tend to eat more of. I love grinding my own flour for bread.

Eating out of buckets I'm more skeptical of - a family of 4 may eat 9 months of freeze dried food but they won't like it; although if the choice is between starving and eating freeze dried foods, they'll eat it. That's where I think the synergy comes between Costco and this type of long term, last ditch nutrition: the place is full to the rafters with prepared foods of all sorts. Folks who graze the aisles at Costco probably won't have too much trouble digesting these freeze dried foods over the long term.

FWIW my strategy is to stock foods my family regularly eats, and rotate them into our regular meals as much as possible; and as they approach expiration, donate the overage to the local food bank. It takes a little more space and management than a pallet of buckets, but is more edible.

If given the hindsight, I think $85 for a month's supply would have been a justified expense, just to see if you liked the selection....I started out without a plan, just putting away staples that were cheap (typically less than $1 per pound for beans/rice/cocoa/pasta), and quickly figured out that the storage container was going to be more expensive than the actual product being stored...I could store a bunch of rice in a 5gal pail, but was not very practical for a single old guy..

that is the reason I suggested the Wendy DeWitt video mentioned in the Urban Preparedness forum... since then, I've switched to vacuum sealed glass jars... little more money, but for my situation more practical... and they store under the bed

at $.26 a packet, that's cheaper than a brass cased 5.56 round or two 9mm reloads