5 Best Emergency Food Supply Companies

This is an updated review of the best emergency food suppliers. Our first roundup was several years ago, and we will continue to update as new products are released and as we test new food supplies.

When things don’t go as planned, one of the first things to sell out is emergency food kits. Supply chain disruptions cause chaos and panic at grocery stores, and food becomes scarce. This is why long-term food storage buckets have been a mainstay of preparedness for over 50 years.

Whether it’s a regional disaster or a national catastrophe, a prepper food kit as part of your food storage plan can keep you fed through it all. There are many different brands from several companies to pick from. The number of prepper food kit choices can be overwhelming.

This is where we come in. We have plenty of combined experience with pre-made food storage kits and freeze-dried backpacking food, and have put in the research and taste testing. We pinpointed three brands that rose above the rest, with good value, reliable shelf lives, and best of all, they actually taste good.

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Contents (Jump to a Section)

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Where to Buy: Besides its direct site, Augason Farms is also sold through Amazon and Walmart.

Augason Farms is one of the cheapest emergency food suppliers you can find. They are manufactured in higher volume, which makes them less expensive and easier to stock up. Augason is a 50-year-old family business, and it does a lot of private-label emergency food supplies under the name Blue Chip Group- so they even manufacture for some higher-cost competitors.

One thing I love about Augason Farms is the variety they offer. Buckets, pouches, #10 cans- they offer it all, and they are all the least expensive options available. They also rotate through some pretty solid deals regularly and stay on our prepper deal finder page with sales that make it easy to stock the pantry on a budget. I like to snipe deals on their #10 cans when they come up. You can find some items over 50% off every once in a while.

Augason Farms Variety	Products Available
Emergency Food Kits	13
Pantry Pouches	13
#10 Cans	43

How Augason Farms Tastes

They scored slightly above the middle of the pack in my taste test, so their food isn’t going to wow you like a 5-star restaurant. That’s only a slight drawback, and we’ll go over how to remedy that with condiments and seasoning. When it comes down to it, they simply have unbeatable value and make stocking emergency food easy and affordable for anyone.

Their nutrition score took a larger hit, with some higher levels of salt in their entrees. It wasn’t the highest amount I saw during testing, but it’s still not ideal. If you don’t like salty food, you may want to keep going to our nutritious pick, which has the lowest salt by far.

I’ve been reviewing emergency food for years and have eaten plenty of MREs and rations before that in the military. If you need to stock some calories in your prepper pantry, Augason Farms Emergency Food is the brand I trust in my own pantry.

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Where to Buy: Besides its direct site, Mountain House is also sold through Amazon.

Of course, Mountain House is going to have the best macros, taste, and quality- they’ve been doing freeze-dried food forever, and cost a pretty penny!

All backpacking pouches are extremely convenient for cooking and eating straight from the pouch. Mountain House doesn’t use very much water to reconstitute and takes less time to cook than the others. It also has a slight edge on shelf-life, but I’m not sure I’ll be around to verify in 30 years versus 25.

Mountain House Variety	Products Available
Emergency Food Kits	13
Backpacking Pouches	45
#10 Cans	22

For those who want the absolute best, Mountain House earns its top spot on the trail as an upgrade over MREs and other backpacking brands, and works well in the kitchen, too.

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Where to Buy: Besides its direct site, Nutrient Survival is sold through Amazon and Walmart.

Nutrient Survival is a relative newcomer to the emergency food supplier game, but after a pivot, they are knocking it out of the park with their products. They started with a variety of ‘singles’ – small pouches meant to compete with backpacking brands, but quickly found their edge with #10 cans and powdered products.

The singles pouches and food kits have been pared down, but the variety for #10 cans has been growing following their success. Not everything they make is a homerun either- the barely edible chocolate bar is a minor misstep for this supplier that usually knocks it out of the park.

Nutrient Survival Variety	Products Available
Emergency Food Kits	2
“Singles” Pouches	15
#10 Cans	14

How Nutrient Survival Tastes

Because we’re looking at an entire company and not a specific product, Nutrient Survival suffers in the taste comparison category. Their food bars and single packets are nutritious, but don’t taste great, especially the bars. But, over the past year, they keep showing up as top picks in a separate category with great-tasting and highly nutritious products: powdered food.

Check out how they top various powdered food reviews thanks to the rich taste, silky texture, and unbeatable nutrient profile:

• Best Powdered Milk for Long-Term Food Storage
• Best Powdered Eggs for Long-Term Food Storage
• Best Butter Powder for Long-Term Food Storage

For those who want to pack their pantry with the best #10 cans, Nutrient Survival has the goods.

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ReadyWise isn’t without its scandals, but the company does do one thing right: variety. Whether you need vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, or organic, they have an emergency food kit ready to go for you.

ReadyWise simply beats the competition with its enormous variety. This variety only considers the ReadyWise brand as well- they also ship even more emergency food under the Wise Company and Simple Kitchen brands. While the taste and nutrition profile hit middling scores, the variety and ability to pick tuned emergency food kits with dietary restrictions in mind make ReadyWise worth considering for your stockpile.

ReadyWise Variety	Products Available
Emergency Food Kits	16
Pantry Pouches	27
#10 Cans	37

How ReadyWise Tastes

ReadyWise lands smack in the middle of the competition when it comes to taste, but it makes sense given their enormous variety. If you try enough of their food, you’ll find things you like and other meals you’ll avoid, just because there is so much of it.

They run the same amount of sodium and sugar in their food as other emergency food brands, putting their scores near the middle there, too.

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Wornick, Sopakco, and Ameriqual manufacture MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat) and other packaged meals for the military. You can’t buy them directly from the manufacturer’s websites, but you can get current inspection-dated MREs, FSRs (First Strike Rations), and HDRs (Humanitarian Daily Rations) from respected resellers online.

MREs may not taste as good as some of the backpacking and emergency food companies’ meals, but they get the job done and are a familiar meal for most veterans.

We’ve done a deep dive into MREs already, so you can check out the various menus, our taste-tests, and full review: Best MREs Taste-Tested: Top Meal, Ready-to-Eat Options

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Comparison Table

Emergency Food Company	Pick	Price	Total Variety	Specialty
Augason Farms	Overall Best	$	69	Budget-friendly staples and kits
Mountain House	Premium Brand	$$$$	80	Great-tasting freeze-dried food
Nutrient Survival	Most Nutritious	$$$	31	Nutrient-added pantry staples
Readywise	Dietary Restriction	$$	80	Diet-specific variety
Wornick, Sopakco, Ameriqual	Military Meals	$$	30	MREs
LDS Pantry Supply		$	18	Bulk #10 Cans
Ready Hour		$$	71	Surprisingly nutritious
Legacy Food Storage		$$$	34	Large long-term kits
4Patriots		$$$	56	Classic long-term food
Backpackers Pantry		$$$	37	Freeze-dried backpacking food
Numanna		$$$	25	Dietary restrictions
Ready Project		$$$	9	Bucket kits
Roundhouse Provisions		$$$	4	Chuck Norris’ approval
Heaven’s Harvest		$$$$	29	Organic food storage
Valley Food Storage		$$$$	38	Expensive kits
Peak Refuel		$$$$	28	Backpacking pouches

The Emergency Food Brands We Tested

Our research narrowed the field down to several contenders that we tested: Mountain House, Legacy Food Storage, Readywise, 4Patriots, Augason Farms, Nutrient Survival, Peak Refuel, and more. Once we got past the numbers (cost, calories, shelf life, nutritional content, and so on), we went into the taste tests.

People’s taste preferences can vary, but it is still easy to tell when the whole group decides that one brand tastes better than the other brand. All of this information together helped us inform our recommendations. I separated the backpacking pouches to test on my own, so we weren’t overwhelmed with food choices.

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What to Look For

The best emergency food suppliers have several important features to look for in their products:

1. Cost
2. Taste – 40% of overall score weight
3. Nutrition – 20% weight
4. Shelf Life – 20% weight
5. Variety – 20% weight

Below, we break down what each of these means for the best prepper food companies. When you get the right blend of these, you get the best overall value. Each one is important- it would be a mistake to prioritize cost over taste, for example.

Cost

Emergency food is one of those things that has a huge range of pricing. As you can see, to build out just a 30-day food supply from each company using their most cost-effective kit or bulk food items, there is a massive difference in costs.

You’ll get what you pay for with some, but many of them are over-inflated prices that rely on high-pressure marketing tactics or occasional sales to grab huge margins.

*Price of a 30-day food supply at the latest update.

Even my top picks are not immune to manipulating prices and perception to their advantage. Augason Farms’ 30-day basic bucket is hardly a 30-day solution with less than 1300 calories portioned per day. That’s why I priced their deluxe bucket instead, and also track their prices on our deals page.

Taste

The whole point of emergency food is to eat it. So if it tastes like week-old soggy chip beef on toast, you’re going to have an even harder time during an emergency.

In that same vein, texture matters quite a bit too. Chowing down on slop- soups and wet food- for a long period can be demoralizing as well. Over the years, I’ve tasted plenty of emergency food, field rations, and chow hall experiments- so I

I cooked up at least one meal from each brand to try out, sticking with chili mac (or whichever closest meal they had to it).

For the most part, emergency food companies get a bad rap when it comes to taste- they aren’t that bad. I think texture and lack of variety are the issues with some food storage kits, where you might be expected to eat potato soup for 30 days straight. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and you don’t want to be able to eat every meal with a straw.

Nutrition

Proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals work together to keep your organs healthy and working properly. When you create a long-term food storage plan, you will want a wide variety of food types to create balanced meals.

Shelf Life

Most food we eat throughout the week can’t last more than a few days on its own. Food goes bad- decomposition is just how the world works. Humans have had many accomplishments over the years in attempting to improve the shelf life of food. We’ve salt-packed meat and invented refrigeration, freezers, and supermarkets. The latest and most profound innovation? The freeze-dried food kit.

Freezing meat makes it last 1,500 times longer than it would at room temperature.

Freeze-dried foods can make meat last up to 100 times as long as freezing.

So, freeze-dried foods can extend your period to eat that food by 150,000 times!

Shelf life for freeze-dried foods typically varies from five years to thirty, depending on the contents of the food and the packaging methods. Besides foods that do not have a shelf life, this is as good as you can get.

Expiration Dates

• 30-Year: Mountain House, LDS Pantry
• 25-Year: 4Patriots, Augason Farms, Heaven’s Harvest, Legacy Food Storage, Numanna, Ready Hour, Ready Project, ReadyWise, Roundhouse Provisions, Valley Food Storage
• 10-Year: Backpackers Pantry
• 5-Year: MREs

If you are lucky enough to get close to your emergency food expiration date, you will want to re-order to replace your stockpile. This is a good chance to crack them open and eat what you would have during an emergency. Whenever you do a taste test or use any of your emergency food, be sure to restock quickly so you aren’t caught empty-handed during an emergency.

A few of the brands have resealable pouches and buckets, but opening those will still reduce shelf life. Augason Farm’s buckets have a gasket seal in the lid, so they seal back very well, but can be a bit hard to open. #10 cans are offered by emergency food suppliers and are very effective for bulk stacking and nesting in the pantry.

Variety

Stocking up on one type of food is ill-advised, even if it is a freeze-dried food kit. Many emergency food suppliers offer a variety of buckets and kits, and you should get a mix that will give you and your family balanced nutritional rations.

Company	Premade Kits	#10 Cans	Individual Pouches
ReadyWise	16	37	27
Mountain House	13	22	45
Ready Hour	12	32	27
Augason Farms	13	43	13
4Patriots	44	12	0
Valley Food Storage	9	0	29
Backpackers Pantry	1	0	36
Legacy Food Storage	14	0	20
Nutrient Survival	2	14	20
Heaven’s Harvest	4	17	8
Peak Refuel	3	0	25
Numanna	23	0	2
MREs	0	0	24
LDS Pantry Supply	0	18	0
Ready Project	9	0	0
Roundhouse Provisions	4	0	0

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Other Emergency Food Companies

There are a few more companies with meals or products that I have tested that are worth mentioning. They didn’t make the top spots due to a lack of variety or inflated pricing, but there are still standouts when you look closely at each company. Don’t rule a product out just because it’s not from one of the five companies I’ve listed.

Ready Hour

Ready Hour surprised me, because it scored better in taste, nutrition, and variety than I expected given the marketing I’ve seen for it. Ready Hour is just one arm of the Ready Alliance Group, which also ships emergency food under the Emergency Essentials, Beyond Outdoor, and Ready Harvest labels.

They also make the best emergency coffee, which is worth grabbing if you rely on coffee every morning like me.

LDS Pantry

Heading to the LDS online store is one of the cheapest ways to stock #10 cans. Grabbing a case of macaroni and black beans can get you a whopping 79,740 calories in your pantry for $101. Plus, they last 30 years. Their variety isn’t big, but using them to stockpile simple staples can stretch your dollar in a big way.

SOS Food Labs

Last but not least, SOS Food Labs is best known for the lemon shortbread ration bars, or ‘lifeboat rations’. Most people don’t know that they have an upgrade to these in their Millennium Bars. With a wider variety and smaller packaging, they took the cake when we reviewed the best emergency food bars.

They also manufacture prepackaged emergency water pouches, which are great for bug out bags, car kits, or other places where water storage can have temperature swings.

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How Much Food to Stockpile

Food is an important part of our daily lives. It is a survival priority, and the survival rule of three says we can’t live long without it. Research shows that you can’t go much further than three weeks without food, and even that is without expending much energy.

Luckily, it’s also pretty straightforward. For shorter-term preparedness, you just need to consider calories. Calories give you the energy you need to get stuff done and keep going during disasters. The general rule of having 2,000 calories per person, per day works well for most people, though it can scale down for kids and up for larger and more active people.

Once you start to approach a month, you’ll want to start to consider macronutrition and variety, though. A balanced diet of protein, fat, and carbs, along with critical vitamins and minerals, is important for our health. Most of the kits emergency food suppliers sell can hit the mark, although sugary carbs and sodium are often a shortcut they take to hit higher calorie marks with good taste.

To dive deeper into what food you can use and how much food to store, check out our general Emergency Food Guide: Survival Food List, Strategies, & Stockpile Checklist.

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Who Needs Emergency Food Supplies?

Everyone eats, and everyone can benefit from a prepper food stockpile stored away for an emergency.

Most preppers store emergency food at their primary residence, along with their tools and other contingency supplies:

• Food Storage Plan

Emergency food supplies are usually smart to include in:

• Bug Out Bags
• Bug Out Vehicles

If they are able, many preppers keep emergency food stored at their bug out location. Anywhere that you could be spending time in an emergency would be a good option for storing extra food with an extremely long shelf life.

Sources and References

Our analysis of the best emergency food suppliers would be useless without crediting our sources and references. We leaned on these resources for the book knowledge that we paired with our practical military and emergency management experience. If you would like to learn even more about prepper food, how freeze-dried food works, and research studies conducted on food shelf life, dig into our sources:

Denkenberger, D., et al. (2015). Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe. Academic Press. (Source).

Ratti, C. (2008). Freeze Drying and Vacuum Drying of Foods. Drying Technologies in Food Processing. Blackwell Publishing. Page 225. (Source).

Subramaniam, P., et al. (2010). The Stability and Shelf-Life of Food. Woodhead Publishing. (Source)

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The Final Word

Food is one of the most important things a prepper can stockpile, and emergency food suppliers make it easy. A hundred years ago, people spent a considerable amount of their lives planning and preparing food storage, yet today we can preserve food for an extremely long time with freeze-drying technology.

As always, I suggest that you try your food storage out. Make sure you know how to cook it, that it is being stored properly, and that it has enough calories, nutrition, and variation in taste. If you’ve had it for a while, be sure to check the expiration date and cycle your inventory if you have to.

If you are looking to learn more about food storage, check out these articles we’ve written up:

• Best Canned Foods for Survival
• How to Store & Treat Water for Emergencies
• Survival Food List | Pantry Stockpile Plan and Checklist

We presented quite a lot of information, but as always, if you have any questions, let us know, and we would be happy to help. Our research and testing found Augason Farms to be the best emergency food company based on taste, nutrition, variety, shelf life, and value.

Keep exploring, stay prepared, and be safe.

See more of our expert-written guides, resources, and reviews in your search results – add TruePrepper as a preferred source.

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