Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Went up to CostCo to check things out for myself. Indeed, there were Mountain House freezedrieds there. Two different types.

First up was a ten-pack of their ‘two serving’-size entrees. I forget the flavors…lasagna, teriyaki, stroganoff and something else. Price was $39.99 or $3.99 per pouch.

Next up was this package of ‘Kirkland’ brand fruit. Kirkland is CostCo’s ‘in-house’ branding. Buy a few million dollars worth of any product and the manufacturer will slap whatever name you want on it. (You really think Sears made all those .30-30 rifles we see on the used rack?)

Notice on the corner of the box where it says Oregon Freeze Dried? That’s the parent company of Mountain House. Apparently CostCo contracted to buy enough of this product to get OFD to package it up as Kirkland. Reasonable price, by the way, for a little snack size of freeze dried fruit. Winds up at something like eightysix cents per package. A nice addition to your morning oatmeal when out in the boonies.

Speaking of Mountain House, I received an email from thm other day. It says they are re-introducing the #10 cans to their dealer network. In my opinion MH was a jerk to their lesser-volume dealers over the last couple years. They basically only released the #10 cans to their highest volume dealers while letting the little guy get virtually none. That’s not how you build brand loyalty. In fact, I would bet that MH’s behavior and HK-like attitude (“Because you suck. And we hate you.”) is one thing that has put Augason Farms on the map in terms of food storage. Mountain House sells some great product, and has a few things that are hard to find elsewhere, but before plunking down coin with them I’d check AF and see if they have a similar product.