1 Year’s Supply Of Food For $800 From Costco
Costco is selling an entire year’s supply of food for $800. That’s only $67 a month. Made by a company called Shelf Reliance, it’s all freeze-dried or dehydrated and is primarily marketed as emergency food (10-20 year shelf life). However, it also claims to taste pretty good, and they suggest to use it in rotation as a regular meal supplement.
The THRIVE 1 Year Food Supply comes complete with 78 #10 cans ranging 5 food groups: grains, fruits, veggies, meats & beans and dairy. With over 4,700 servings and many foods with a shelf life of up to 20 years, this package will give you variety, nutrition, and peace of mind. In addition to the high quality foods this package provides, a wheat grinder is included.
* 1 Year Food Supply for 1 Person
* 6 Month Food Supply for 2 People
* 3 Month Food Supply for 4 People
* Shipment arrives in 14 separate boxes
* Freeze-dried products have up to a 20 year shelf life if unopened
* Dehydrated products have up to a 10 year shelf life if unopened
* Simple rehydration instructions, recipes, and helpful tips on each can
* 4723 total servings
* Seventy-eight #10 cans
* Wheat Grinder included
I could not find any good in-depth reviews of how this product actually tastes and/or looks when prepared. Anyone out there try it before?
Find more in Frugal Living | 10/9/09, 4:05am | Trackback
October 9th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Living in hurricane country, I considered it as our stash, but opted to stock up on dry goods / canned goods that we normally would eat, have about a 2 year shelf life, and can be rotated out. My plan is to just check on the stock each spring or summer, and be good for the year.
Water is my bigger concern. I stock cases of bottled water from costco, and have a spare propane tank / turkey fryer to boil water, but hopefully it won’t come to that.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:03 am
[...] 1 Year’s Supply Of Food For $800 From Costco [...]
October 9th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I looked into packages like this a year ago and as I recall you’re supposed to supplement them with a good amount of cooking oil as well, which goes bad a lot sooner than 10-20 years.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Remember the Golden Rule of Costco: They make their gold because they tempt you to buy WAY MORE than you will actually consume. Households in the US waste 14% of their groceries due to spoilage, poor planning, etc. (http://www.foodproductiondaily.....s-to-waste), and that’s AFTER the shrinkage just getting the food shipped to the stores! If you wouldn’t eat this stuff in your regular food rotation, you won’t eat it even if the world is ending. I would say it would be better to rotate food stocks you already like and are comfortable with. If you were in a situation under stress of life and death, there’s no need to add to it with something unfamiliar. And if that never comes, you’ve just wasted $800 and added more garbage to the landfills. Lose-lose.
October 9th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I forgot to add: don’t forget the overhead cost of maintaining this food supply. You’ll have to pay in terms of storage space — 78 x 10lb cans, gallon size each…one cubic foot is about 7.5 gallons, so it will take you over 10 cubic feet to store this! That’s a significant amount of space in your house you are sacrificing.
Perhaps it might be better to buy the “trial size” versions first to see if you would actually eat the stuff at all.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Charlie, (and anyone else), great idea. Just buy food (canned soup, Chef Boyardee, etc,) and rotate out every 6 months. I don’t know about anyone else, but I block out a Sun afternoon when I change my clocks to “take care of business” around the house, change the furnace filters, etc. This can be done as part of that.
As an aside, what do you do with the stuff you rotate out? Assuming its not expired, PLEASE consider giving it to a food bank. I volunteer at a food bank once a week, and these last few months have been extremely depressing. # of people served is way up and donations are way down. We will take everything as long as its not expired. And some Food Banks take expired food too. (I should clarify. We take it. We just don’t give it out)
October 10th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@ Auntie-green: because of your comment, I just made a donation to my local food bank. Thank you for reminding us!
October 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Wow, $800 for an entire year of food…this would be great if you wanted to be super frugal for a year. You could easily sock away a few hundered a month if you could stay on the “emergency food plan”
October 13th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
[...] Claire on October 14, 2009 I was fascinated by this article I read over at My Money Blog about the fact that Costco is selling a year of food for $800. It [...]
October 14th, 2009 at 9:01 am
i think i would eat oatmeal for a year first.
cheaper, better for you, and likely tastes just as well.
a cup of grains and a cup of milk, bang, dinner.
throw in a banana and you have like 3 food groups right there.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I have used products from this company and find them satisfactory. When Mt. St. Helens erupted many years ago we used a lot of this type of food and were grateful for it. I supplement my freeze-dried with canned items and bulk products. I probably have the equivalent of their $800 kit in items that I have purchased individually and they mix into my year’s supply very well. I would consider it if I didn’t already have most of it. Their shelves are incredible, also.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
[...] One year’s supply of food for $800 from Costco [...]
November 4th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Thought you might like to know that your link to the product is broken.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Beware. I ordered this item just before Costo stopped selling it. I received my order a couple days ago and will probably return it this week unless Coscto or Shelf Reliance can tell me what the total calorie count is (not available from Costco or Shelf Reliance web sites). My estimates from data available are that this “one year supply” provides less than 1,000 calories/day. This is less than a starvation diet.