Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Unfortunately, production of HORMEL® Hash Singles has been discontinued. Our decision was difficult and we are sorry to disappoint you.

We hope you will continue to enjoy our other products that are available in your area.

Gina
Consumer Response Specialist

Alright, I’m not too upset. They still have the small single-serve pop-top cans so I guess that’s what I’ll be socking away in the bunker. Sure, I’m disappointed but, hey, life goes on.

Dammit.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

So, I was thinking about post-apocalyptic menu planning and I was ruminating about breakfast. It is, as they say, the most important meal of the day. Now, while I can appreciate the nutritional and caloric benefits of grain-based diets I am not prepared to go through the apocalypse as a grazer. I need meat. So….what are some traditional breakfast meats that lend themselves to long-term storage? The most obvious is everyone’s favorite – canned bacon. Plenty of it out there and it’s definitely on my list. But, while I enjoy bacon as much as the next guy what I really like for meat at breakfast time is corned beef (or roast beef) hash. Fortunately, this is also easily available in cans. Here’s the problem – most of this stuff is available in the #303-size cans…which is around 15 oz. I might eat half of that at breakfast and if no one else is going to have any then half a can of hash winds up being wasted since, presumably, there’s no refrigeration in this apocalypse. Ok, maybe there’s a way around that. Sure enough. Hormel (who makes the hash that I rather like) does offer their product in the small pop-top ‘single serving’ size. Awesome! As I perused their website to see if they had the roast beef hash available in that small can as well, I came across this promotional photo:

As you can see, there’s the convenient single-serving pop-top can up front. Nice, right? But..wait..are those…???? Yup, single serve ‘retort pouches’ there on either side of this family portrait of dead animal flesh. So, now it becomes interesting. See, while the small cans are good I would really like to have some of the retort pouches as well…they’ll travel nicely, fit MRE heaters, and should be a bit lighter and perhaps more durable (freeze/thaw cycles) than the can.

And, of course, that’s when my internet shopping experience fell apart. I can not find any place carrying the bloody things. Now, I’ve got pretty good Google-fu skills…I can find an ex-girlfriend or my kindergarten teacher like that :::snaps fingers:::. But…I’m pulling nothing but zeroes in my search for this product. I suppose it’s possible that it was a limited-time offering or an experimental packaging that they never moved into mass production…but if it’s out there, I want it.

So, my friends….I’m going to continue searching but if any of you out there wanna take a swing at this and find me a US source for this stuff (I found one in Japan. Useless.) I would appreciate it. Leave a link in comments if you come up with anything.

ETA: Yes, I know I can contact the company. Yes, I did that. But Im an instant gratification kinda guy and who knows how long it takes them to answer their email.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Well, it isn’t like food prices are going down, right?

One of the local supermarkets has ben running some pretty good sales over the last week or so. Prices that were just too good for me to pass up. So, when they have Green Giant canned vegetables marked down to $0.39/can wouldn’t you stock up too?

Food prices are only going up, folks. And, if you think that isn’t the case because your favorite product is still the same price as it was six months ago, take a really good look at it….I’ll bet you it’s less product at the same price. In economics we call that ‘a price increase’.

While I certainly have food socked away for the zombie apocalypse, I also have food socked away to avoid getting screwed at the checkout counter. Don’t think it makes a difference? Try this experiment sometime….head down to your local grocery store and price a 1# bag of plain, white rice. Now head down to WalMart or CostCo and price a 25# or 50# bag of the same rice. Do a little math and come up with a price-per-pound. That difference that youre seeing is a pretty good representative sample of why it pays to buy in bulk, shop around, take advantage of coupons and read those annoying flyers in your Sunday paper.

$40 billion a month to buy distressed mortgage-backed securities and that money has gotta come from somewhere…and when that finally catches up to us you’re gonna see that thity-nine cents for a can of vegetables was a bargain compared to the price your going to pay later.

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Yay Mormons! Trip to the cannery went smoothand quick. Got my goodies and was outta there in a lot less time than I anticipated. My thanks to the local LDS members who allowed me to accompany them. (Technically, I could have gone on my own invite but I feel more comfortable going with someone as their guest.)

Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

w00t! At this point it looks like we are on track for a trip to the local LDS cannery in a couple days. My mission (so to speak) this trip is to round out incomplete (“broken”) cases. Since a case holds six cans of product, any quantity of product I have that is not divisible by six gets supplemented. For example, according to my spreadsheet we have 15 cans of sugar. That means there are two full boxes of six cans, and one partial box of three cans (12 + 3 = 15) So, I’ll get three more cans of sugar and that’ll give me a total of 18 cans, or three full boxes of six cans each. Get the idea? I’ve about five different broken cases to top off.

If you’ve never been to an LDS cannery, it’s an awesome place. You know how when you go to CostCo or Sams Club you wonder if people are looking at you funny when you roll up to the register with a cart full of six cases of canned vegetables and five 50# sacks of rice? You wonder if people think you’re weird or something.. At the cannery, if you don’t walk out of there with a hand truck full of cases of canned food they look at you weird.

Prices? Uber-affordable. Matter of fact, here’s a link to their page with .pdf and Excel formats of their order list. Check the prices…good stuff.

There’s no requirement that you be a member of their church (or even a believer in anything). They start the session with a small ‘bow your head and give thanks’ moment, which I usually use to check the laces on my shoes, but other than that the whole thing is completely religion-free. You are, however, expected to put in some sweat equity….you can’t just buy the stuff, you gotta take part in the canning process. You might be asked to run the canning machine, weigh the product as it’s put into cans, put labels on cans, add dessicant to the cans, whatever. I’ts an assembly line where every one gets a role…probably a good thing since it means you gain familiarity with the process of how stuff is canned. That familiarity is handy because they will also let you buy cans and lids to use with their portable can sealer that you can check out for home use. In case you want to can stuff they don’t sell….like ammo.

Anyway, they provide an awesome service and I encourage everyone to check them out. (Locations)  I usually offer to buy lunch for missionaries when I see them wandering/pedalling down the street…it’s my way of saying thanks. It’s this sort of thing that makes Mormons my favorite religious group. (That and their hot women.)