The Best Emergency Food Supply Companies 2023 [Kits and Buckets]

Starting an emergency food supply is one of the most important things you can do to get prepared.

Yet trying to figure out the best emergency food can be daunting.

There are plenty of options for long-term emergency food:

• Canned goods,
• Home freeze-dried foods
• Dry staples in sealed Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.

In fact, your emergency food supply should consist of all these types of food.

But, for cost, convenience and reliability, it makes sense to buy some meals or kits from brands that specialize in emergency foods.

While there is no one “best” brand of emergency foods, I like some a lot better than others.

I’m going to review 5 of the top brands to help you make an informed decision.

(If you are on a restricted diet, these posts on gluten-free survival food and organic emergency food will also be helpful.)

Best Emergency Food Winners

• Best Overall: Valley Food Storage
• Best Tasting: Mountain House
• Best Low-Budget Option: Augason Farms
• Best Long-Term Kits: ReadyWise Food Storage
• Best For Maximum Calories: Legacy Food Storage

Best Emergency Food Comparison Table

Company	Shelf Life	Price (per serving)	Nutrition
Check Prices	Up to 25 Years	Approx $1.09 to $1.42	Low protein, moderate sodium
Check on Amazon	Up to 25 Years	Approx $2.01 to $2.50	Moderate protein, very high sodium
Check On Amazon	Up to 30 Years	Approx $0.65 to $1.80	Low protein, low sodium
Check Prices	Up to 25 Years	Approx $2.36	High calorie, high protein, high sodium
Check On Amazon	Up to 30 Years	Approx $3.00	High protein, moderate sodium, low calorie

How to Compare Brands

Before we get into the emergency food brands, I want to discuss how I reviewed them.

I looked at the meal offerings and considered these factors:

1. Nutrition

The calories in emergency meals mainly come from carbohydrates and fats. Cheap, unhealthy emergency food brands don’t contain much more than this: they are usually just pasta or potatoes with a cheesy sauce thrown in for flavor.

By contrast, healthy emergency meals (or at least as healthy as you can reasonably expect with food that has a shelf life of 25 years) contain a good balance of carbs, fats, and proteins. They will also include some freeze-dried fruits and vegetables – usually corn and peas. These ingredients don’t have many calories but contain essential nutrients.

2. Shelf Life

Anything less than 5 years is unacceptable for long-term food storage. Most brands have shelf lives of up to 25 or 30 years.

3. Packaging Material and Size

The packaging must be sturdy to withstand damage from disasters like hurricanes and flooding. The meals/foods should be packaged in smaller portions so you don’t end up throwing away food after opening the package.

4. Sodium

Most emergency meals are loaded with sodium. This much sodium could be disastrous for your health, especially while inactive and hunkering down.

5. Cooking Method

All of the brands listed here have products that are easy to prepare. Simply add hot or boiling water.

6. Convenience

Planning emergency foods can be confusing. Many brands make this easier by offering “kits.” For example, you might start with a 1-month food kit of freeze-dried meals and essentials. This is much easier than mixing and matching freeze-dried veggies, meats, and grains to make your meals.

7. Taste

Taste is important when choosing your survival food. Just be warned that many better-tasting emergency foods taste good because they are loaded with sodium and chemical flavoring.

8. Cost/Value

The cost is important – but not at the expense of the points already listed. I calculated the price per serving of their meals (taking calories and quality into consideration).

Don’t Get Swayed By….

• Weight: Some emergency food brands boast that they are the “cheapest per pound.” The weight of a kit isn’t that useful when comparing options. Many brands load up on bulky foods (such as pasta) and skimp on foods like freeze-dried meat, fruits, and veggies (which you need for micronutrients).
• Servings: When buying survival food kits, you can’t just look at the listed number of servings included. You need to pay attention to calories. Read closely, and you’ll see that a “serving size” is usually around 200-300 calories. Do the math, and you’ll find that the emergency kits only provide around 1000 calories per day.

Best Emergency Survival Food Brands Reviewed

Valley Food Storage

Learn more about Valley Food Storage

Valley Food Storage is a good balance between everything you’d want from emergency food. They are affordable, have decent nutrition, and have a great variety.

There are currently 12 different entrees that are tasty, albeit lacking in protein. They also have fruit, veggie, and “carnivore” buckets. You can also buy all meals and products individually to build your own kit.

What They Offer:

Valley Food Storage sells meal kits, breakfast buckets, entree buckets, fruit and vegetable buckets, freeze-dried meat, and individual products. You can buy individual foods or kits from Valley Food Storage. Their 525-serving buckets offer an excellent variety for preppers just starting out.

Freeze-Dried Foods:

Emergency Meals:

Emergency Food Kits:

Packaging:

Like most emergency food, Valley Food Storage packages its products in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. If you buy one of their long-term kits, these bags will be in a sturdy bucket. After opening, the packs can be resealed.

Nutrition and Quality:

Regarding sodium content, Valley Food Storage is one of the better emergency meal options. Each meal contains a lot of sodium (about 600-800mg for most entrees). However, this is still much less than you’ll see with other brands and will help you stay below the daily limit of 2300mg.

Of course, these low sodium amounts mean that Valley Food products don’t taste as good as their unhealthy counterparts. Luckily, the texture is still good on their products.

Be warned that the entrees don’t contain meat. Entrees like “Chicken and Rice Pilaf” have chicken broth and not actual chunks of chicken.

Price:

For freeze-dried meat, Valley Food Storage has some of the best deals. It comes out to about $2.50 per serving of meat. Their other freeze-dried foods are also affordable.

You can purchase entrees from Valley Foods individually. Bought by themselves, the cost is still reasonable at about $2.80 per serving. Once you buy kits, the costs get lower. Depending on the kit, the price is only $1.09 to $1.42 per serving.

Read our in-depth review of Valley Food Storage 

 Wise Company

ReadyWise (previously Wise) is one of the best-known emergency food brands and has been around for a long time.

They have a vast selection of emergency kits ranging from 72-hour starter kits to long-term kits. Most of the entrees contain real meat and are high-protein. You can also buy foods individually to create your meals; however, the prices aren’t as reasonable when purchasing products separately.

What They Offer:

ReadyWise has a huge selection of freeze-dried foods that are packaged in pouches. For the best deals, you can buy assorted buckets of freeze-dried foods.

Packaging:

ReadyWise Food packages its products in Mylar bags, which are in buckets. Each Mylar bag has around 8 servings in it. The packaging is reliable and convenient for emergencies. Depending on the product, the shelf life is 10 to 25 years.

Nutrition and Quality:

ReadyWise has recently improved the nutrition of its meals. Of the 13 entrees, 7 now contain real freeze-dried meat. This helps increase the protein content of the meals (though the soups are still very low in protein).

However, the meals are still mostly pasta-based, and there are very few veggies, so the nutritional profile isn’t so great. Even their veggie buckets only contain 4 different foods. If you care about eating healthy, you might want to buy a fruit and veg bucket from another brand.

Do note that the sodium is VERY high for most entrees at about 1300mg per serving.

Price:

If you want to buy individual pouches or entrees from ReadyWise Food Storage, it is pricey. However, as you start buying in bulk, the food quickly becomes affordable.

Read our in-depth review of ReadyWise Food Storage 

Legacy Food Storage

Learn more about Legacy Food Storage

Legacy Food Storage boasts some impressive reasons to choose them over other emergency food brands.

They have the lowest cost per pound, their foods last 25 years, and their average calories per serving are high.

I still prefer brands like Augason or ReadyWise over Legacy. These brands don’t have as many calories per serving, but the ingredients are better.

However, if you don’t mind the high sodium and added sugars, you’ll find that Legacy is one of the best-tasting emergency foods out there.

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Packaging:

Regarding convenience, Legacy does an excellent job with its packaging.

The products are packaged in resealable bags, each with a small serving size.

If you don’t consume the entire bag immediately, many of the products will last up to a year after the bag has been opened. The bags are put into buckets, which are well-built.

Nutrition and Quality:

The main selling point of Legacy Food Storage is that their meals have a higher calorie count than most other brands. However, I’m concerned about where these additional calories come from.

Read the ingredients list of the meals, and you’ll see that they have added sugar (cane syrup). This is part of the reason that Legacy emergency foods taste so good.

Factor in the high sodium amount per serving (600-1000mg per serving), and you’ve got a tasty but unhealthy meal.

For a short-term emergency, all that sugar and sodium won’t matter. For a long-term crisis, it could take a toll. The sodium will stress you out. The sugar will cause your energy levels to spike and fall, leaving you tired and stressed.

Note all Legacy Food Storage products are vegetarian. If you add freeze-dried meat to the meals, the price per serving will increase dramatically.

Price:

When you buy one of their emergency meal kits, the price per serving comes to approximately $2.36 per serving.   This is on par with most other emergency food brands. The only difference is that Legacy meals have many more calories per serving.

Augason Farms

Check Prices on Amazon

Augason Farms isn’t as well-known as the other emergency food brands. However, they are one of the best picks for people who want to build their own stockpile.

They have much more variety than most other emergency food brands. Their foods are sold individually or in smaller-sized kits. It will take some more planning to build your stockpile this way, but you’ll be able to choose which foods and meals you want and save money.

What They Offer:

Augason Farms offers a wide variety of freeze-dried products. They have options that you won’t find from other emergency food brands. Great for foodies!

I like that their foods are packaged in cans. Each can contains 3-4 pouches for 12-16 servings per can.

Packaging:

Most Augason Farms products come in #10 cans with a shelf life of up to 30 years. You’ll find smaller pouches with 4 servings when you open the can. This makes it convenient to use the foods – you can open a can without worrying about using everything at once.

Augason also offers some food buckets, but most of their emergency food kits contain the #10 cans.

Nutrition and Quality:

Meals by Augason Farm tend to have more calories than other brands (about 240-300 calories per serving). There is a lot less sodium in their meals than you’ll find in other brands.

The meals also have more vegetables than you’d find in other brands. They aren’t just loaded with starches and cheese. However, the protein is very low. Even the “chicken” meals usually don’t contain any chicken (just chicken flavoring).

Price:

At $199 (for 307 servings, 56,600 calories), Augason Farms has one of the cheapest 1-month food supply kits you can buy.

Just note that many “servings” are low-calorie sides like cheese powder or mashed potatoes.

Read our in-depth review of Augason Farms.

Mountain House

Learn more about Mountain House

Mountain House Foods is well known in the backpacking and thru-hiking community. Over the past several years, they have branched out to include emergency preparedness food kits.

Note that Mountain House does NOT offer much in terms of freeze-dried foods or bulk foods (they only have a few cans of meat and crackers). They do have a great selection of freeze-dried entrees, breakfasts, and desserts.

Packaging:

Mountain House products come in either pouches (with 2-4 servings each) or #10 cans (with 10 servings). There are also “Pro Paks,” packaged to reduce weight and take up less space in your backpack.

Previously, Mountain House said the shelf life of pouches was 7 years. However, they now offer a “Shelf Life Taste Guarantee” of 30 years on all their pouches and cans (except for some desserts).

I like the Mountain House pouches and Pro Paks. However, their #10 cans don’t contain any pouches. This makes them impractical to use during an emergency: you’ve got to use up all 10 servings within a week of opening the can.

Nutrition and Quality:

Unlike other emergency food brands, Mountain House focuses on the quality of ingredients.

Their entrees contain meat and not just textured vegetable protein. They are one of the best-tasting emergency food brands without adding tons of salt and chemical flavoring).

The overall calorie count of meals might be low, but there is a lot of protein and nutrition in each serving. This is why thru-hikers love Mountain House.

Price:

Mountain House is one of the pricier options for emergency food. Individual meal pouches cost about $10 for 2.5 servings, which puts the cost at $4 per serving. The cans are more affordable at about $3.5 per serving.

The best deal is their 14-day emergency food kit. It contains 42 pouches for a total of 100 servings. At $300, this comes to $3 per serving.

Yes, $3.00 per serving is a lot compared to other emergency meals. However, remember that Mountain House is one of the few brands to use quality ingredients and include real meat.

The price isn’t bad if quality and protein content is important to you.

Wrap Up

Every brand featured offers a decent product, and their kits will provide a practical and convenient long-term food storage solution for most people.

The differences come down to the following:

• Price
• Nutrition
• Amount of Calories

Decide which combination of these is important to you, and you should be able to make the right choice with the information provided in this article.

Check out the links below to investigate each company further.

Company	Shelf Life	Price (per serving)	Nutrition
Check Prices	Up to 25 Years	Approx $1.09 to $1.42	Low protein, moderate sodium
Check on Amazon	Up to 25 Years	Approx $2.01 to $2.50	Moderate protein, very high sodium
Check On Amazon	Up to 30 Years	Approx $0.65 to $1.80	Low protein, low sodium
Check Prices	Up to 25 Years	Approx $2.36	High calorie, high protein, high sodium
Check On Amazon	Up to 30 Years	Approx $3.00	High protein, moderate sodium, low calorie