This post is part of a series of emergency food supply company reviews. If you haven’t already, start by reading the beginning post “Oh So Many Emergency Food Supply Companies“.
This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click on a link to a product, I may receive, at no extra cost to you, a small commission when you make a purchase. Thank you for your support.
Product: AlpineAire Foods- Website URL: AlpineAire.com
- Year Founded: 1979
- Four Places To Buy Online: AlpineAire.com, REI.com, Amazon.com
, Nitro-Pak.com
, AlpineAire offers a variety of freeze dried meal pouches that are prepared by adding hot water. They also offer three different “7 Day” meal kits: Standard, Vegetarian and Gluten Free. The manufacturer states that pouches will last 5+ years under proper storage conditions.
AlpineAire also offers food stored in #10 cans under the Gourmet Reserves label, which will be reviewed separately.
Tell Me The Nutrition Information
AlpineAire does provide the nutrition facts on their website. Each pouch is an average of 600 calories. Given that the “7 Day” meal kit includes 14 pouches, that is only 1200 calories per day, which isn’t much.
If there is some sort of emergency where you will be dipping into your long term storage, chances are you are going to be at least moderately active in your survival pursuits.
According to webmd.com, you will therefore want to plan on the following approximate calorie needs:
- Ages 1-3: 1200 calories
- Ages 4-8: 1600 calories
- Ages 9-13: 2000 calories
- Males 14+: 2600 calories
- Females 14+: 2000 calories
- Add 200 calories while pregnant.
- Add 500 calories while breastfeeding
As you can see, 1200 calories per day isn’t going to cut it for anyone except your toddlers and preschoolers.
The standard kit offer 30g of protein per pouch, the vegetarian kit offers 25g of protein per pouch, and the gluten free kit offers 28g of protein per pouch. This is 16-20% of the calories per pouch. 15% is a reasonable minimum amount of protein, so these are reasonably balanced meals. You will want to evaluate if this is enough for you and your kids.
So How Much Does It Cost?
Since this product is available from many locations, I needed to narrow down which website I would want to order from. To do this, I did a cost comparison of a handful of different products.
- AlpineAire.com offered the second cheapest price per individual pouch on their website with $8-$12 shipping for orders less than $50. They offer free shipping on orders over $50. The 7 day kit costs $79.95.
- REI.com is a little more expensive per pouch, but also offers free shipping on orders over $50. They do not carry the 7 day kit.
- Amazon.com had the most expensive cost per pouch but had free shipping. The 7 day kit currently costs $79.95 here.
- Nitro-Pak.com is a little cheaper than AlpineAire.com but has a flat shipping fee of $12 up until $499 at which point you get free shipping. They do not carry the 7 day kit.
Cost per pouch is cheapest as part of the 7 day meal kit. The cost of the 7 day kit is the same at AlpineAire.com as Amazon.com.
If you want to buy individual pouches, REI.com and Amazon.com are more expensive than ordering individual pouches directly from AlpineAire.com. The tipping point to choose Nitro-Pak.com over AlpineAire.com is 17 pouches. So if you are ordering less than that you will want to order directly from AlpineAire.com.
In order to compare with other manufacturers in my future reviews, I have decided to use the following metric: cost per 2000 calorie day, with a minimum of 75g of protein. If you were to stock up using pouches from the standard kit purchased at AlpineAire.com or Amazon.com, cost per 2000 calories averages out to $19.04.
If you were to use this product for a full year’s worth of food storage, you would be spending $6,949.60, which seems pricey. It would take a long time to stock up with a budget of $100 per month. I am very interested to see how other emergency food options compare.
Review of the Reviews
Neither AlpineAire.com nor Nitro-Pak.com offer customer review ratings on their website. REI.com offers 9 products products with at least a 4 star average review rating. Amazon.com offers 10 products with at least a 4 Star review rating. Reading through the reviews on Amazon.com, the chief complaint is durability of the packaging. Some pouches busted during shipping. Also some flavors did not rate well due to taste, but most were deemed acceptable.
Unfortunately I was unable to find many other reviews from independent bloggers who appeared to have actually tried their products. One blogger did compare a couple of flavors with another brand, Mountain House and voted in favor of Mountain House. Other reviews on Amazon.com also compared and voted in favor of AlpineAire. So you will just have to see which, if any flavors suit you and your kids.
Are There Good Affiliate Programs?
Since I am in the business of affiliate marketing, I took a peak at the affiliate programs of the websites where these products are available.
I will always recommend purchasing from the supplier with the best price, barring a compelling customer service related concern. If the price is the same, I will recommend purchasing from the website with a better commission.
- AlpineAire.com does not appear to offer an affiliate program.
- REI.com offers an affiliate program with commissions of 5%.
- Amazon.com offers an affiliate program with commissions of 4% on Grocery products.
- Nitro-Pak.com offers an affiliate program with commissions of 10%.
So What Is The Verdict On AlpineAire?
The reviews seem favorable enough that AlpineAire products are worth trying. Since the pricing per pouch is best in the kit, and the kit is the same price from Amazon.com as the manufacturer, I recommend purchasing from Amazon.com (click here for my affiliate link: AlpineAire Foods 7 Day (14 Pouches) Meal Kit) and seeing if these pouches might have a place as a portion of your long term storage plan.
Have you tried any of the products available from AlpineAire? If so, please leave me a comment below and let me know what you think.
That’s a very complete review. I’m surprised they have that much protein. A year’s worth of those packs does seem like a lot, but then again I would hope that no one would have to have that much. If so, you would have a lot more to worry about besides the cost of those packets!
Sandra, thanks for leaving a comment. I was also surprised about the amount of protein. I am hoping the cost of some of the other options I am looking into will be cheaper.
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Jayesh, thanks for the comment. I have tried to be as thorough as I could on both pages.