Night at the Cannery

Those of you interested in stocking up on foods should track down their nearest LDS cannery. I went to the Houston one last night, had a great time helping package the stuff, and left with forty-five #10 cans of assorted rice, beans, wheat, sugar, macaroni, powdered milk and more for $178.

The process is simple, just call the local cannery and ask when you can come. The Houston cannery runs two shifts a day, one starting at 9am and the second starts at 7pm. When you arrive for the shift you hand them this form with your choices. Everyone else also hands the person in charge their forms and it all gets totalled up. Then the bulk packages are brought over from the wharehouse and you split into teams to fill, label, and seal the cans. As they are sealed others sort them into boxes according to the form you submitted. Once a bulk bag has been opened its entire contents need to be canned. This results in some overstock of stuff. Once all the shift's orders are filled you can pick stuff from this overstock to add to your order. You do have to pay regular price for it, but the prices are so low it's hard not to throw in a few extras (I grabbed three extra #10 cans of flour for $2.90 each).

The labels are all preprinted with nutritional data, storage lengths, and in the case of dehydrated stuff directions on rehydration. I had the smallest order of the 10-12 people there but even so we finished canning everything up in less than three hours. The people were all really nice and there was no issue with me not being a Morman and there were no attempts to convert me. A very non-denominational prayer was said at the beginning, but I couldn't tell any difference bewtween it and the prayers at my church.

Technically non-Mormans are only allowed one trip to the cannery, but this rule isn't always enforced, especially if you work hard and pleasently.

Anyway, I thought a few people might be interested in this so there ya' go.

-Blast

> Technically non-Mormans are only allowed one trip to the cannery

For life?

It's mainly up to the person in charge of the cannery. Back at Y2K people were coming in repeatedly, buying tons of stuff and then reselling it. This caused tax issues for the church and so they put the one-time-only clause in for non-members. The lady in charge of the Houston cannery seemed pretty mellow on this rule, basically if she liked you you could come back. She mentioned one non-member that had been back many times and was even allowed to borrow equipment to can stuff at home.

-Blast

Thanks Blast! Good Info.

Very nice idea... and worth looking into

Wow. That's very cool.

Thanks for the info, Blast!

If I visit the cannery, what are the chances I might exit the cannery in a #10 can labeled Soylent Green?

Will they let you bring stuff, such as ammo or survival gear, and seal them into cans???

That is an exceptional idea!

Are the folks in the Houston cannery familiar with the people in Carrolton (Dallas)?

At one time they did, I don't know if they still do. Now days you might just be limited to the bulk dry foods they carry. Call and ask, though maybe you don't want to mention ammo. Ask if there's anything you aren't allowed to bring in and put in a can.

You can buy heavy-duty mylar bags and oxygen absorber packets from them to seal stuff up at home. The mylar bags can be heat-sealed with a regular iron, there are directions on the internet.

-Blast, always trying something new.

Depends on the crew you are with. One lady on ours sliced her hand wide open on the razor-sharp edge of an unsealed can and covered the contents with blood...

-Blast

I couldn't tell you but I can probably ask the guy who told me about it. This all started because my wife takes the DDs to the playground every to do home-schooling in the park. A group of Mormon home-schoolers are always there at the same time and they befriended her. The husband of one is in charge of their church's emergency preparations, leading to a great friendship being born. I'm going to try and get him to join ETS for a major bout of mutual learning.

-Blast

Excellent idea Blast, thanks for the valuable info.

I've been hearing about these canneries a lot lately, but didn't know where to look, thanks! Turns out there is one about 30 min from my house. I'll be giving them a call asap.

Fantastic info Blast! Thanks!
How long was the shift you worked? What did you do? Did anyone try to convert you? Most of the Mormons I've meet have been over seas (missionaries) and they were all very preachy.
I'll look up my local center.
Thanks again!

MichaelJ,

I handed my order sheet to the lady in charge at 7pm and was out the door before 10pm. In that time a team of ten of us packed over 500 #10 cans of stuff then cleaned up the facility. No one tried to convert me, which suprised me. I got the impression that these weren't exactly "hard-core" Mormans, especially when they started talking about canning coffee beans.

My main job was carting the bulk bags of stuff from the warehouse to the canning room and other heavy lifting. If you can arrange it go during the day (9am) shift. Supposedly it's all women and they really appreciate having a guy show up to do the heavy lifting. Other jobs were opening bulk bags (bring a knife), weighing the foods into the cans, putting labels on the cans, and sorting the orders.

-Blast

Maybe LDR(R) (Reformed?)

OK, I'm a moron. What the heck are you talking about? LDS? Mormons? Cannery? What?

I live in Southeastern PA - is this some regional thing I wouldn't know about?

Or, I'm, um, the opposite of religious, so maybe this is just some common knowledge I might have missed because I have no connection to any religious organization.

Disregard my other post. I didn't notice your link.

Sorry, they are just too creepy and preachy for me. I'll do my own canning.

There are not all that many Mormon Temples, but one is, oh, 2 doors down from work. I personally have found them to be good neighbors, even though we have different beliefs (heck, I'm a right wing nut job, and I'm a UU - I expected an anti-matter explosion with that one).

Personally, I've found that if you give them a BIT of respect, they get to know who you are, they tend to let their deeds to the talking, and don't go into the prostelitizing mode that many people dislike. I actually find it nice to deal with quiet respectful people in the heart of Manhattan

LDS=The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, shortened to LDS, aka the Mormon Church. In many cities the church has "canneries," where members (and others) can come to seal food (and maybe other goodies) into #10 cans. Each church member is supposed to have a full years food supply on hand. Hence the old joke about, when the food riots hit, making money selling maps of where all the church members live...

My brother-in-law and his wife recently switched from the bar (not the legal type) to the Morman faith. Other than him sending me a ton of church related e-mails, the only other change we have seen in him is that he doesn't drink anymore...

Time to show my ignorance, again. What is UU?

Here is some info Mr. Google gave me...

Unitarian Universalist.

kc2ixe can probably put it better than I do, but as near as I understand it, the UUs have no one creed or path, but are instead unified by the search for truth. If I'm wrong on that, I'm apologizing now, before I find the Unitarian Inquisition at my car in the morning.

Thanks. Good Luck in the morning. Maybe they will show up too early and freeze to death waiting for you to come out. Ha Ha.

I was gonna guess University of Utah...

Unitarian Universalist - probably the most "touchy feely" left wing church out there

Pretty much right - and how do you know when you've pissed of the UUs?

They burn a question mark on your lawn

"...touchy feely..."

Now you are just teasing me. Sounds like the San Jose or Chico State Colleges of old...

Blast,OBG,and the rest
we don't try and "convert" everybody we meet, we know that there are different faiths and beliefs. My grandparents on my dads side are Catholic, my moms parents are Lutheran,so we are a mixture of "religions". When we get together we don't harass each other we are just a family.

During my seven(7)years as Stake (think diocese)(sp)Emergency Prepardness Specialist I used ETS for training ideas and, tried to share ideas with all of you.

Any questions you may have just PM me and I'll try and get an answer for you.


Sorry to be long winded

Michael

Thanks, Michael, I was going to tell folks I'd be happy to have a friend that is devout LDS chime in, he is a regular guy and would never presume to be intolerant or preachy.

But you beat me to it.

I'm going to look up my local folks as well, see if I can pitch in and benefit at the same time.

Thankyou "Brother" Blast, I just made arrangements to Go Next Friday and volunteer at the cannery about 90 miles from me.

thank you for the info.

As I wrote on another thread, i found a cannery in my town, very close. A LDS friend is going to get me the checklist and we are going to go down together.

On a sidenote, my wife has an employee who works at the cannery 3 Saturdays a month. "WTF? And this was not mentioned to Mr. Preparedness you have been married to for 13 years?" haha

Here is a link to help find your local cannery...

<http://providentliving.org/location/map/0,12566,2026-1-4,00.html>

Update: some canneries have portable canning equipment non-members can borrow to seal #10 cans at home.

See here.

-Blast

Blast or Michael/kd7fqd,

I have an appointment next week at the Palnt City Cannery. What do you suggest a first timer stock up on /purchase? I realize it depends on what your family will eat, but maybe you can post what you got Blast to give me an idea.

Thanks!

Texasboots,

From memory (all #10 cans):

Twelve cans of rice
Twelve cans of hard red wheat
Two cans of sugar
Three cans of flour
Two cans of potato flakes
One can of black beans
Two cans of pinto beans
Two cans of regular oatmeal (rolled oats)
Two cans of quick oats
Two cans of macaroni
Two cans of dehydrated refried beans
Two cans of powdered milk

Other people there told me that the powdered milk doesn't taste very good and that it is best used for cooking or on cereal rather than drank straight. However the dehydrated refried beans are AMAZINGLY GOOD. We had a bowl of them out to snack on while we were canning everything else. The dried apples are also really good, but we make our own of those.

Right now I wish I would have added more macaroni and more flour to my purchase. We use a lot of both of those.

Hope this helps.

-Blast

Thanks for the info Blast. I am debating on buying flour vrs wheat. I know wheat lasts a lot longer, so that would be a better choice im sure, but then I have to get a grinder ect.. Is the macaroni elbow?



I checked out your wild edibles page, great stuff.

I would like to see you make a meal or somthing out of wild growing things. I see many lists of edible things, but never actually see people eating them, except dandelions of course.

Even Les Stroud lost in the woods for several days usually only eats a rat or a squriel or somthing. I would love to see how someone would actually live off of wild edibles, if thats possible.. For longer than say 2-3 days.

Thanks,