The cheese powder is new…might have to get some to try out for post-apocalyptic mac-n-cheese. Not the price on freeze dried strawberries….$3 per ounce, or $48 per pound. Let me crunch some numbers while you go look at these pictures…..
Strawberries appear to be $3.49/#, or .22/ounce locally. Quick Googling shows that freeze drying strawberries reduces their weight (not volume) by about 88%. So, to get one ounce of freeze dried strawberries you need to start with about 8.33 ounces..or, in other words, a ratio of 8.33:1.
If strawberries are $3.49/#, then 8.33 ounces (52% of a pound) of strawberries would cost $1.81.
So, the can of Augason FD sstrawberries, at 6.4 ounces, contains 3.33 pounds of strawberries before FD processing.
Augason is $3.00/oz for FD strawberries. You can make them yourself for $1.81/oz. You would save $1.19 per oz. At $1600 you would need to make 884 ounces (55#) of FD strawberries for the machine to pay for itself. That would be the equivalent of 138 cans of strawberries.
Obviously the margins, and therefore the returns, on more expensive things like meat would result in ‘paying off’ the purchase of the machine faster.
Something to think about.
Commander:
Is WinCo turning woke?
Plenty of “Milk Substitute”. No sign of Milk.
Plenty of “Meat Substitute”. No sign (here) of Meat. How long before we see “Cheese and Butter Substitute”…
Whole milk powder doesn’t keep as long as low fat or nondairy.
Meats, of course, are for more e pensive than meat substitutes.
AF is going to market at price points that will generate the most sales..that means a $60 can of FD beef won’t sell as fast or as much as a can of substitute at a fraction of the price.
Good Morning,
We have a Harvest Right four tray freeze dryer and have been using it for the last 7 years. Overall, we are very satisfied with the appliance. Cost of the units and cost of operation plus cost of food etc. are factors in determining if a purchase is worthwhile. The $1600 dollar price at Costco is a fabulous deal. Aside from the upfront costs of owning one I think there are a couple of other factors that also contribute to satisfaction with owning a unit. Other than the cost of operating the unit there are on going costs of mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. That’s not necessarily a deal breaker, at least for us. There are also storage issues. You need some place to put pouches. We use boxes but are transitioning to plastic tubs. Each of our boxes holds 64 mylar bags and that represents about one years worth of freeze drying efforts. Our freeze drying efforts have been geared towards providing a protein, vegetable and some starches for meal prep. Variety is a concern but essentially everything is pizza…meat, cheese, sauce, bread. You hit those elements and as a general rule your family will be satisfied if you break into your freeze dried food items. Of course, there are some tips and tricks associated with owning and using a freeze dryer and I don’t have any greater insight into any of them than the next person. However, the main reason I’m posting in regards to a freeze dryer purchase and is it worthwhile has more to do with a persons motivation for owning a unit. We approached our purchase as a hobby…something we do because we want to and get some satisfaction from. Of course, there are the almost immediate benefits of greater preparedness in terms of food security and increasing your self-sufficiency. We like our unit and use it consistently. If I had the space I’d snatch one of those $1600 units in a heart beat.
Cheers
Yes, those are the differences in purchase cost for the food – but don’t forget to include electric costs, your time, packaging materials, and the quality control/ testing the company has done to get a (relatively) tasty product that also lasts a long time.
Finally, don’t forget repairs and maintenance. I have friends with a freeze dryer – it’s down because the pump broke; they are looking for a replacement that is less than $1,000. (Food grade, oil free , compatible with the system, etc).
Have I considered one? Yes. But I haven’t bought one yet for the reasons above.
The down side to freeze dried and powder is the need for sufficient clean water to reconstitute it. In a TEOTWAWKI situation, that could be an issue for many.
CZ, I find it interesting that, here in the Republic of Kalifornia, Winco offers very little of what might be considered survival food products. Seven to eight years ago, there was a smattering of No. 10 cans at my local store. All gone. Now, there are a few 25 lb. bags of certain staples and that is it. Of course, Winco puts on the shelves products it believes its customer base will buy, so-o-o-o…
It is ironic that an area that is threatened with massive earthquakes (“Not if, but when”) and an area that has multiple potential Ground Zeros has such a laissez faire attitude about preparedness. Normalcy Bias is a bitch.
BTW, have you noticed the dramatic drop in preparedness blogs in the last few years. In a time when “talking head after talking head” tells television viewers that we are closer to nuclear war now than at any time since WWII, it seems ironic that we have fewer and fewer Jeremiahs telling the “children of Israel” to repent and prepare for hard times.
Youre the second or third person in a few days to comment to me that the number of preparedness blogs seems to be dwindling. Perhaps its because its become more mainstream and is no longer a niche.
Was enormous loss when Remus znd Woodpile passed away
Ding! It’s more mainstream, at least in the suburbs, where all of our PNW neighbors were at least conceptually onboard. Whether they followed through or not isn’t known except in a couple of cases. Everybody had guns, though. Possibly driven by earthquake concerns. Imagine losing 30+ innocuous and not-so-innocuous bridges on I-5 and I-90.
Urban cores prep? Doubt it. Hope so, but it does cost money that might be unavailable or spent on unnecessaries.
It’s hard to keep coming up with new ways to say the same thing over and over, and it’s disheartening to see the people who don’t take the advice suffer for it.
And blogging consistently and in an interesting way is harder than most people think. If you aren’t fairly well committed to it, and for your own reasons, it’s easy to stop.
nick
But if “[I]t’s become more mainstream and is no longer a niche,” that would seem to indicate that more people are concerned about preparedness. Were that so, then the blog coverage concerning preparedness would blossom because the audience was there. What we’ve seen is a decline in coverage.
Some have suggested that more people are watching YouTube preparedness channels. Maybe, but those videos require way, way more time in getting to the point of the video. I suppose that doing so allows more commercials.
Just keep in addition to cost of machine, consider the cost of your time and the electricity if you are going to freeze dry stuff yourself. We operate a nice dryer and use it regularly, but it definitely takes time and uses some power.
BTW, hints that work well for us are right-sizing food before trying to process, and freezing food on trays in regular deep freeze before putting into the freeze drying cycle. Extra trays obviously help throughput since freeze dryer is the pinch-point.
Augason seems like a good brand. I was really disappointed when I looked at a lot of “survival” foods just to see they mostly carbs. White rice, dried beans, wheat… there are good grains that have decent amounts of protein that store for decades, so why would anyone buy a survival ration that is probably just low quality versions of the actual grains? It made me decide to keep 3 years of multi vitamins on hand. I have even more vitamin C. To me, the problem is going to be preserved meat, vegetables and fruits. Auguson and some of the mormon offerings seem like they can help with this, but to me, gardening seems like the best solution if you have land and there is no nuclear or volcanic ash covering it.
On a different note. I recently acquired a Ruger GP100 in .22LR and love it. I would like to buy its equivalent in 22 mag because I like the caliber and already have other firearms and ammo of that caliber. Do you or any of your followers have any suggestions? Aside from the Smith and Wesson 648, all of the 22 mag double actions seem to be short barrels and/or only six rounds. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Do to circumstances I’m forced to liquidate my food storage, if anyone is interested.
I have approx 20 cases #10 Cans freeze dried food, mostly Thrive, some Arguson and Mt House. Will take half value. Have beef, chicken, ham, veggies, eggs, etc.
@dale, what part of the country are you in?
nick