Costco starts to sell 'apocalypse bucket' with food that lasts 25 years

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/doomsday-dinners-costco-sells-apocalypse-bucket-food-lasts-25-years-rcna162474

by thunderbong • 2 years ago

38 68 2 years ago

nbcnews.com

BugsJustFindMe2• 2 years ago

At $80, the price is low enough that I bet a lot of people would buy it just out of curiosity.

39896880• 2 years ago

I suspect it will be a hit in Utah.

pipe2devnull• 2 years ago

That’s a pretty good deal and probably not a bad idea to have on hand especially for a lot of people that live in areas more prone to severe weather or natural disasters.

BugsJustFindMe2• 2 years ago

Or anyone who likes backpacking. The equivalent at REI is several times the price.

thebruce87m3• 2 years ago

The bucket features 80 entrees and sides, 30 breakfast servings and 40 drink servings that just need water to prepare, for a total of 25,280 calories.

That’s only 10 days at 2,500/day for an adult male.

I suppose you could buy a bucket every year and retire them once they run out, then you’ve always got 250 days on hand.

dtnewman• 2 years ago

I am decidedly not a prepper, but what is considered a good amount of food to have on hand in that community? 10 days of food gets you through almost any natural catastrophes. But what does 250 vs 100 days do for you? Perhaps the former gives you enough to get through a winter so you can farm your own food after the thaw?

thebruce87m3• 2 years ago

I’m not a prepper either, but 10 days doesn’t seem like a lot, especially when you start dividing it between multiple people. 100 man days of food is 25 days for a family of four (maybe more since kids need less). For a localised disaster like Katrina maybe that would be enough. For a war time scenario, maybe you’d want more.

Just to clarify, I don’t think I’d have enough in the house even for a week at the moment.

salad-tycoon2• 2 years ago

For anyone interested, obviously a lot of prepper oriented material out there but for budget preparing I found the Mormons, of all groups, had easy and affordable and scalable lists.

harimau7772• 2 years ago

This is just speculation, but I could see there being a spectrum. E.g. bags of rice are an easy way to store a ton of calories but aren't very palatable and require you to boil water. On the other hand, survival meals are easy to prepare but expensive.

So perhaps the optimal strategy would be a combination of the two (likely with other options as well such as a supply of dried fruit to provide vitamin C).

beerandt• 2 years ago

You can go do the rabbit hole of risk scenarios, but you still end up with a list that will look something like (made-up) 100 days of supplies will get me through 80% of the list, and 250 days will get me through 95% of it.

If you want to go down that rabbit hole, start with studying Katrina. Has almost every variation played out within one extensively documented event. Hunker vs leave, severe acute damage (MS) vs persistent 'lessor' flooding (NOLA), figuring out how long you need to evac, and when evac turns into short/medium term relocation or even permanent move.

Yea it's local and not Armageddon, but it provides the framework for how to think about these things, and how relying on faulty assumptions gets you in trouble.

But the real answer to your Q is that you'll start by prepping for 10-day events, then 100-day events, then maybe 250-day events, and you'll start to be able to fill in the gaps of your knowledge yourself. No matter what the risks.

Along the lines of: What good is 250 days of food without X? Where x might be water, fuel, meds, or 'lessor' needs like internet, work/job, social events, etc.

Or what good is 250 days of food if I have to abandon 210 days of that supply to evac?

Those are the types of questions that people answer differently, and you won't start filling in the gaps for yourself until you start small and build from there.

chiefalchemist• 2 years ago

How much water per meal? In addition to regular daily H20 needs, it seems like lack of water might kill you before lack of food does.

thebruce87m3• 2 years ago

I live in Scotland. It pishes down most days and I’m surrounded by lochs and rivers.

stolenmerch2• 2 years ago

They didn't just start, they've been selling these off-and-on for years. I have a 25 year food bucket I bought right around the financial crisis 15 years ago.

nly• 2 years ago

Have you tried any of it yet?

I'm wondering if in the apocalypse you're going to crack it open and wish you were dead.

salad-tycoon2• 2 years ago

Last year was eating slightly expired cans of freeze dried star berries that a family member bought for y2k.

Kinda fun.

Their maglite D/C battery collection however, another story.

stolenmerch2• 2 years ago

No, I have it stashed in the basement. I made it through a natural disaster in my area in the middle of a global pandemic and wasn't even tempted to crack it open once. Hope I never will.

somedude895• 2 years ago

I hope Steve1989 reviews one of these.

For those who don't know, Steve reviews (mostly military) rations, all the way from before the first world war to modern day. One of my favorite channels on Youtube.

pcdoodle• 2 years ago

Seconded, Steve1989 is a very great watch with many insights into the art of long term rations.

Vitamin_Sushi• 2 years ago

Nice!

harimau7772• 2 years ago

At the equivalent of $8 for a days of food, this actually wouldn't be too bad of a deal just for day to day use.

However, I imagine eating highly preserved foods everyday wouldn't be good for you?

solardev6• 2 years ago

Beats starvation though, dunnit?

If you're looking to do this day to day instead, there are products like Huel and Soylent that can better meet that need. And also a DIY community for self mixed powdered meal replacements (with a good nutritional profile, and presumably fewer additives and preservatives?).

Stevvo• 2 years ago

There's nothing inherently unhealthy about freeze-dried food. You can freeze dry pretty much anything.

However, you get what you pay for, and freeze drying itself adds cost. Ingredient quality/price must be very low.

chasd00• 2 years ago

When I was a starving college kid $8/day for food that had some nutritional value would have been a godsend hah.

system_breaker• 2 years ago

Costco has been selling these for at least a few years. I think they carry them once a year for a little while.

zug_zug2• 2 years ago

I dunno this seems stupid to me. So 10 days worth of emergency food at $8 per meal?

Like olive oil is safe to eat for years, costs $5 / meal if it's all you eat and you get the fancy kind, and if the world doesn't end you can just use it and buy another backup bottle.

solardev6• 2 years ago

If olive oil was all I had left to eat, I think I'd rather smash my head with the bottle and then slit my wrists with the shards...

zug_zug2• 2 years ago

You say that, but if you're in a 10-day survival situation you'd happily have olive oil by day 3.

Maybe if you're planning for 3+ months off the grid it becomes a bad idea, but I don't think there are many scenarios where we're off the grid for 3+ months and then society comes back in any meaningful way (e.g. more than 1% of population alive, electricity again).

lambaro• 2 years ago

Eating just olive oil? Now not only am I starving, I'm also soiling all of my remaining clean pants?

giardini2• 2 years ago

Well, olive oil and MREs then, would make a nice pairing:

MRE =

"Meal, Refusing to Exit",

"Meal, Refused by Ethiopians"(actually happened),

"Meal, Rejected by Enemy", etc.

solardev6• 2 years ago

They've had these forever. They're just not always on the shelves (but nothing is).

These meals also don't seem all that nutritious. A lot of the entrees are high in carbs but low in proteins and fats (affecting satiety and probably long term muscle mass that you'd need to fight off the zombies). Also not sure about their micronutrient profiles. Doesn't matter for 10 days but hard to survive long term with.

Something like Huel or Soylent offers way more consistent meal to meal nutrition for a little more money (double the price per serving, around $4 instead of $2). Not sure about the shelf life though.

Your local food co-op probably also sells bulk dehydrated hearty soups and meal mixes in powder form. Or get MREs from military surplus stores.

jerlam• 2 years ago

Soylent and Huel both only claim around a year of shelf life, hardly in the same category. Whether that means actual degradation in their nutrient content or just taste/texture is a different story.

operatingthetan• 2 years ago

I let some Huels sit around for about 9 months and they got very nasty.

bunderbunder• 2 years ago

I would assume that, for apocalypse purposes, these kinds of supplies aren't meant as a long-term meal solution so much as a supplemental or "bridge" food source to use while you work on establishing a new food supply? In which case convenience and shelf stability probably is more important than hitting an optimal nutrient profile for long-term health.

Phiwise_2• 2 years ago

These meals also don't seem all that nutritious. A lot of the entrees are high in carbs but low in proteins and fats

Uh, of course? That's the stuff that keeps on the shelf. The point of disaster preparation is to avoid burning cash on throwing your food out every six months or hitting the expiry while you possibly don't even have running water if you forget when rotation day is. It's not a luxury athletics product; it's meant to keep you and your family supplied with calories for a week after an earthquake takes out the interstate your supermarket gets its deliveries on and there is no food to be had at any price. Do you have any actual experience with disaster planning? This comment is wildly off the mark.

solardev6• 2 years ago

Nope, not at all! We do cycle through bags of the fake food though, so shelf life isn't really an issue. We eat then normally and if the power goes out for a few days/weeks we can still keep eating them. If it's longer than that the preppers are gonna kill and eat us anyway, so shrug.

greenie_beans• 2 years ago

you could, maybe, instead, if you're worried about this, homestead with permaculture design principles?

jfengel• 2 years ago

That would require effort and a change in your lifestyle. Now you can indulge your paranoid fantasies just by throwing money at it.

Mind you, I've got the same paranoid fantasies -- just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. I just don't think that I can fix them by throwing money at it. Or even by homesteading with permaculture.

tocs32• 2 years ago

It would be a change in lifestyle but I am advocating for the change for reasons other the "prepping" as much as a health change in lifestyle. In some situations it might even be a substantial source of food and save or even make a little money. That it might help in troubled times is nice.

It, if nothing else, would teach a lot of people just how important our food infrastructure is.

tocs32• 2 years ago

Growing your own food should be more common. It is good to have some fresh food and know where it is coming from. Permaculture should be encouraged more, especially in suburban and rural areas. It might even be a way for some to make a little money (supplement, fun hobby, high school students). It would be an only solution if food was really long term short.

It will not solve all the worlds problems but maybe make use slightly more resilient in time of trouble.

A lot (most?) of people just do not have the space and resources. It is somewhat of a challenge to grow enough food for even one person. Planning and automaton can help but in the end it is work. Permaculture takes aa while to ramp up (so get started early.

karaterobot• 2 years ago

I have two of these buckets in my garage, and I bought them from Costco at least 10 years ago, so this isn't news. Which just makes it an advertisement.

farceSpherule• 2 years ago

The "prepper" industry is making millions on the backs of idiots who think this stuff is necessary.

zdragnar2• 2 years ago

Plenty of people living in regions hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and the like would disagree with you.

My house never has less than a few days of everything on hand because a bad storm of freezing rain means I am literally trapped for days, living at the bottom of a hill with no way to get to town.

tbatchelli• 2 years ago

I have one of these for earthquake preparedness, along with large containers with water. I think i got it 10 years ago from Costco, and I sure hope not having to try the food out.

Since Covid times we’ve been keeping a healthy stock of shelf-stable food that we’re continuously restocking. Our food supply chain seems too concentrated on fewer and fewer suppliers that in turn rely on long haul transportation, which makes it somewhat easy to disrupt and end up with stuff missing from stores for long periods. It feels safe to have a buffer of decent food. The end-of-times-bucket from Costco is therefore only for Zombie apocalypse or major earthquake :D

pushcx• 2 years ago

Oddly enough, this is the same packaging as bulk kitty litter: https://www.petsmart.com/cat/litter-and-waste-disposal/litte...

The CostCo photos show the same tear-off plastic seal and have the hole for the handle, though that's not installed: https://www.costco.com/readywise-150-serving-emergency-food-...

nanomonkey• 2 years ago

Honestly learning to cook, and buying bulk goods is the way to go. During the pandemic I started buying 25-50 lb bags of flour, rice, beans, field corn (with a 1lb of calcium hydroxide to make masa harina), peanuts, raisins, rolled oats and seeds for sprouting, etc. I rotate through it cooking up meals from scratch. Learning how to make tempeh, miso and tofu from soy beans means that I can make tons of dishes that I would have normally would have spent 10x more for in a restaurant or prepackaged meals. I still go to the store, but mostly for fresh vegetables that I haven't figure out how to grow (I live in the city).

Azure Standards is a good source of organic bulk goods.

zomg• 2 years ago

we all know mcdonald's burgers don't decompose, so i keep a 60-day ration on the shelf in my pantry! xD

neilv2• 2 years ago

Before investing in doomsday buckets, people should make sure they're already rotating shorter-shelf-life food that they normally eat, and have a comfortable buffer of that.

For distinct prepper food stores that are different from your daily, you also need to make sure you know how to prepare it, that it was preserved OK (wrt bacteria, mold, bug eggs, etc.), that you're storing it OK (rats/mice/bugs can't get into it, wasn't stored near gas cans, not going to be flooded nor have gotten too hot, etc.), that you have everything you need to prepare it under different likely scenarios (e.g., outages of water, electricity, natgas), can prepare it safely (e.g., no flames indoors that could start a fire when emergency services might already be overextended, no generator exhaust getting indoors), that everyone in the household can eat it without immediate health problems, etc.

If I had kids, I'd try a fun camping-at-home weekend, when we pretend we can't use the faucets or power grid, and we have to figure out how to do things in practice. And then do a bit of subtle retrospective, so that the next time goes smoother, but as fun/interesting, without stressing the kids or overemphasizing it. Then, when there's a hurricane or whatever, it's just camping-at-home, going smoother due to prior experience and preparedness, and we can learn related practices by example, like checking on neighbors to make sure they're OK and have the essentials.

illiac7862• 2 years ago

Before investing in doomsday buckets, people should make sure they're already rotating shorter-shelf-life food

I did not get why? Why isn’t the 25-years shelf life food sufficient? Sorry, probably a dumb question.

neilv2• 2 years ago

Doesn't the second paragraph seem more involved, and like a lot more things could go wrong with it (at the worst possible time), compared to the first paragraph?

wang_li• 2 years ago

Economics. You have a week’s worth of food in the pantry. Over the next month buy a little extra each time you go to the grocery store. Now you have two week’s worth of food. Continue shopping weekly or whatever your routine was. Eat the oldest items. Costs a little during the month you bought extra. Or use coupons and buy specials and sale items. But it costs a lot less than freeze dried food in a bucket and is fresher and tastes better.

Also get a ten gallon container for water and rinse, clean, and refill it a couple times a year.

Put the extra long term stuff in your bunker. Use regular food for the annual power outages and extreme weather.

safety1st• 2 years ago

I feel like this whole topic (having food on hand in case of a disaster) gets overcomplicated. By people who feel helplessly addicted to modern conveniences or something.

I mean I'm not a prepper. But hello, I cook. So at any given time I have several kilos of shelf stable dry goods like rice, beans, flour, pasta. Plus cooking oils and a bit of canned fish, vegetables etc. This stuff pretty much all lasts for years.

I'm sure I have at least two weeks of food on hand, the calories are easy to calculate. If I felt I needed more I would just be buying more of what I already have, except leaning more heavily into canned fruit/veg/meats.

In a pinch a camping stove is all that's needed to make all this stuff edible.

Now water on the other hand, due to the storage space needed, that's a tougher issue.

gwbas1c2• 2 years ago

Hah! I bought one of those online and some iodine tablets when war broke out in Ukraine.

I should probably get some more.

tennisflyi• 2 years ago

Ok? Walmart has a 48 hour big bucket of camp/dried food.

Costco starts to sell 'apocalypse bucket' with food that lasts 25 years

Related Stories