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Hi All!
I finally got around to thinking about prepping. I've always known that I would sooner or later and later has arrived.
What I would like to know is who has the best and most reasonable in pricing. I have been looking into Augason Farms and others. Does anyone have an opinion on Augason Forms? They seem to be fairly reasonable but I don't know very much about their products. I am looking to buy a year's worth of food and I don't want to be stuck with something I can't eat. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
ED

I mostly use a combo of Emergency Essentials and Augason Farms. They have overlapping products but also each has things the other doesn't - and each do some products a bit better than the other. Augason seems or seemed last time I looked to have better prices on raw products like red hard winter wheat. They have a line of gluten free products that others don't have. But EE has a broader line, and their dried milk not only tastes good (as does AF) but is processed to dissolve easily (better than the AF product).

EE has periodic major sales and I tend to bulk buy from them during their sales.

I suggest you test buy and use items that appeal to you and then bulk buy the items you like later.

Whatever your choice I would strongly suggest you buying a sample and try the various foods out. Make sure you purchase only what you really would normally want to eat. You also need to ask: Do you want a combination of freeze dried foods, dehydrated foods as well as regular can food?

Here are a few website you might want to look at:

http://beprepared.com/#default

http://www.nitro-pak.com/

Rich
Thank you for your quick response. I was looking at Augason's one year for one person package to start with.
It has a price of $1285.13 free shipping with a surcharge of $199. That is about a little over four dollars a day.
And that is after subtracting 100 lbs. off a shipping weight of 540 lbs. for packaging material. I figure on using this as a start then will add to it as I can. Now that I have committed to this, watch and see nothing will transpire in my lifetime to have cause to use it. Of course food prices are going to continue to spiral upward regardless, so I will gain an hedge that way.
Thanks
ED

John
Thank you for your input. I am going to be checking out other sites, that is why I asked for some saged advise from those in the know. I will be checking out the two sites you posted. Do you have one you've have bought from that you are satisfied with? I don't really want cans of wet food as I will only feeding one person, me. I would have open cans that would likely spoil if I didn't want to eat them every day. Plus I would be over-eating my stock to keep it from spoiling if I had no refrigeration.
Thanks
ED

My wife & I did Augason's about 3 or 4 years ago thru Sam's. We were glad we went thru Sam's because the heaviest cases were damaged in shipping. Sam's helped us go thru Augason's whose Territory Rep sent us new replacement cases. They had to send them 3 or 4 times because the way they were packaged doesn't work well with the shipper (UPS or USPS, can' remember) and they kept getting damaged in transit. The heaviest can cases are the most susceptible to damage. We even emailed them photo's of the unopened cases. Anyway we ended up with lots of extras that they didn't want back to try out. You'll get lot's of staples & will still need fruits, greens and meats, but it's a good starter package. Check out if the LDS has a food distribution facility in your area. they are great for beans, rice, wheat, etc. Happy prepping!

Shaz
Thank you for your reply. I have been going thru Walmart to check out their prices for Augason. I am sure if anything goes wrong I would have the same guarantee as Sam's. If I do buy it I would be looking to supplement as time goes on. And If the need is sooner than I expect at least I would have the basics.
Thanks
ED

silver wrote:Shaz
Thank you for your reply. I have been going thru Walmart to check out their prices for Augason. I am sure if anything goes wrong I would have the same guarantee as Sam's. If I do buy it I would be looking to supplement as time goes on. And If the need is sooner than I expect at least I would have the basics.
Thanks
ED

Be sure and check out the LDS option. We're not Mormon, but the options and prices are good. They have links on their websites where you can get location info and price lists. They have #10 cans, 5 gallon buckets and 25 pound bags for immediate use. Best of luck.

LDS does have great prices and near free shipping on a handful of basic survival staples. One of the best ways to get that stuff if its on your list. Wheat oats dried milk sugar beans etc. That stuff gets shipped out of a central warehouse.

And if you have access to a local cannery (I don't - they haven't been keeping it up here) that's an additional resource.

I've ordered from both companies and purchased various types of food and supplies from each. Again getting samples to try is not a bad idea. You can also go to places like Wal-Mart in their camping department and find the Mountain House brand and maybe others.

What is the website for LDS?
ED

silver wrote:What is the website for LDS?
ED

I would find a local church and see if you can order through them.

silver wrote:What is the website for LDS?
ED

I'll post it in the morning if someone else doesn't get to it first.

That would be fine Rich. I tried searching for it but I could not connect to the actual cannery site.
Thanks
ED

silver wrote:What is the website for LDS?
ED

I navigated in from the home page but you can start here:
https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage


They have various links on the page for finding locations & their websites, ordering, storage conditions, product recommendations, etc.

Yep go to the order link from there. I've ordered the wheat and o2 absorbers before. I just did a compare on their oats 16.8 lbs for $24.75 in sealed #10 cans versus $30+ on amazon for the same amount of Quaker oats (not sealed for storage). (I Ratioed the prices as the amazon is packaged in 10 lb units.) Good deal from lds.

I went to their site and found it quite confusing. I tried to go to the online ordering and after entering my country I was redirected back to the same window and made no progress. I guess I will have to call one of the contact numbers here in Texas to get information on how to proceed. I found the order form but it doesn't tell you what to do with it. Maybe I'm just too stupid to figure it out on my own.
ED

I don't find it that confusing, but I just tried and couldn't complete an order either using guest checkout. There was a javascript error - I sent them an error report.

For those of you interested in the LDS, make sure there isn't a branch distribution center near you before ordering online. I was surprised several years ago to find out there was one near me. There is a link to locations on their website. You have to move the map to show America and click on it to show the Sates. Best of luck. Keep on stacking (all the good stuff)!

For those of you interested in the LDS, make sure there isn't a branch distribution center near you before ordering online. I was surprised several years ago to find out there was one near me. There is a link to locations on their website. You have to move the map to show America and click on it to show the Sates. Best of luck. Keep on stacking (all the good stuff)!

I keep trying to get past the welcome screen that has the language and country choices. I enter the information and keep getting redirected back to the same screen to make the choices all over again. I don't know what is going on.
ED

Dunno - are you using your smart phone (I couldn't get as far with mine) or a regular browser? Like I said, I could complete the sale either on a full browser, even though it was IE8.

As far a distribution center, they might have more selection I dunno - I don't have one nearby to check out. But the shipping on my order of two cases was only going to be $3. Less than the gas it would take to drive to a center. I would gladly pay that.

I use IE11. I am going to contact the distribution center that is closest to me and see what they can do for me.
In the mean time I pulled the trigger on Augason Farms to get started for my own peace of mind. I will keep you posted with my results.
Thanks to everyone for your help.
ED

I finally got a response back from my report and they said they were having website issues and to try back again later. I just tried again and it's still broken; guess give it some more time. Too bad for those items - so I just suggest you focus mostly on other items and for those things you can get from the LDS store try again every week or so.

I just moved to Firebox from IE8 (needed to do this anyway due to lack of MS security support for IE8) and it worked just fine. So they either just fixed something within the past half hour, or it was a IE issue.