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Augason Farms takes a different approach than most survival food companies. Instead of just providing pre-prepared ready meals, they offer a range of ingredients and packs that you can combine to create a varied menu.
The upside? A greater variety of products and flexibility in creating meals.
The downside? Meals are more complicated to prepare, and you’ll need to plan effectively to make the most of your supplies.
Let’s get to the review.
What We Think
Foodies who want to build their own meals will love the variety of ingredients that Augason Farms offers. The meal buckets are also a good way to get prepped quickly, especially if you can take advantage of their many sales.
Key Takeaways
Augason Farms currently has a few different emergency meal kits. These kits contain meals in pouches. With some of the kits, the meal pouches are packed into buckets.
Currently, Augason Farms offers:
Most of these kits contain approximately 1,800 calories per day (their 72-hour 4 person kit has 2,203 calories per day).
While the calorie count may seem low, it’s actually a higher daily calorie amount than most other emergency food companies offer.
On average, you will require approximately 2,000 to 2,500 calories of food per day. However, if you are just sitting around your home waiting out a disaster, then 1,800 calories per day is adequate. Otherwise, you will want to stockpile some snack foods to supplement these kits.
It’s worth noting that Augason Farms used to have long-term meal kits of 6 months, 9 months and 1 year. I don’t know if they will be bringing these long-term kits back or not.
Augason Farms also gives you the option to buy just their freeze-dried meals and not the kits. These meals are available as:
Compared to the regular meal kits, these buckets give you a bit more variety. For example, the lunch and dinner bucket has 10 different meal options, whereas the 30-day kit has 9 different meal options. They include a dessert too, which is a nice touch.
Do pay attention to the total calories in each of these buckets though. Because most meals only have around 240-330 calories per serving, you’ll likely need to eat multiple servings of each meal to feel full – which can make planning your food preps more difficult.
Like other emergency food companies, Augason Farms sells a bucket of freeze-dried fruits. With Augason Farms, you get a slightly bigger variety than with other companies.
One cool product that Augason Farms offers is a bucket of rolled oats. It contains a total of 9.9 lbs of oats and the shelf life is up to 30 years.
I did the math. The bucket of oats costs approximately twice as much as buying 9.9lbs of oats. But, once you factor in the oxygen absorbers, Mylar bags, bucket and the time required to repackage the oats, the Augason Farms oat bucket ends up being a good deal.
Here is where Augason Farms really shines when it comes to emergency food. They have a huge variety of foods that are packaged in #10 cans (Read what is a #10 can here).
The shelf life of these foods is usually 25 years, though some fatty foods (like butter and cheese powder) have shelf lives of 10 years. Some of the foods are also available in pouches.
Here is what Augason Farms currently offers in #10 cans:
Having all of these options is really great. With a bit of planning, you can build your own nutritious emergency meals.
For example, you stockpile pasta you buy from the supermarket. During an emergency, you simply add some of the freeze-dried meat, tomato powder and veggies to it to make a complete meal.
Finally, Augason Farm also offers its meals in pouches. This lets you buy just the meals you like instead of getting an assortment like you would with emergency kits or variety buckets.
Note that some of the #10 cans of meals actually contain meat in them. This is why they are more expensive than the versions which come in the kits.
Whether Augason Farms is the right supplier for you will depend more on your approach to disaster planning than whether you prefer mac and cheese to potato pie.
We’ve tried to compare their products to those of other suppliers as fairly as possible while recognizing the different approach they take to meal kits.
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms meal kits only contain 9 or 10 different entrees. The breakfast selection is even smaller: just 3 or 4 options. You can also buy some different meals in #10 cans or pouches.
While this really isn’t a lot of options, it is on par with or better than what other emergency food companies offer.
However, when it comes to the variety of bulk foods, Augason Farms is fantastic, I love that they have mango and pineapple. The black bean burger and various baking mixes are also awesome options.
If you add some of these bulk foods to the Augason Farms meals, you can end up with a lot of variety. For example, one night, you could have the Fettuccine Alfredo with peas and beef and the next night, have it with chicken and corn.
Here are the entrees which Augason Farms currently offers:
Primal Rating:
In taste testing, Augason Farm’s meals come out middle-of-the-road. They’re edible, but nothing you’d rave about to your friends. Their soups are better than many competitors, particularly the creamy potato soup, and the Morning Moo’s milk alternative is one of the best-powdered alternatives to real milk that you’ll find.
The pre-prepared meals have some of the longest ingredient lists I’ve seen, with many unpronounceable names and chemical compounds. It’s not all bad, though – some of the meals contain meat and vegetables and actually sound like something you’d want to eat. Unfortunately, those meals aren’t always included in the food kits.
Primal Rating:
Many of Augason Farms meals can be made simply by pouring water over them and waiting. However, a lot of the meals require cooking. Some of them even need to be cooked for 15 to 20 minutes!
This means you will need to have an emergency stove and fuel – plus be in a situation where it is actually safe to cook (which is not the case if a gas leak is suspected).
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms currently does not have any gluten-free or vegetarian meal kits.
They do have some gluten free and vegetarian meals that you can buy in pouches. However, their website currently does not have a way to search for these meals. It’s up to you to read through the ingredients list of each product to see if it meets your dietary requirements.
The one good thing for people with special dietary needs is that there are so many bulk food options. You can easily build your own meals. Also, Augason Farms offers more vegetarian protein options than other companies.
For more options, see our article on the best gluten-free emergency food.
Primal Rating:
This is another tricky thing to gauge. The meals, particularly those in the short-term food kits, are designed to be cheap and filling rather than healthy. But if you’re using the bulk ingredients and meal kits, then you have the opportunity to create balanced meals packed with protein and vitamins.
As we can’t go into every possible meal combination, let’s look at the pre-prepared meals to which you just add water.
Although the meals are high in carbohydrates, they generally have a lower sugar content than other brands. Even the maple oatmeal breakfast cereal only has 11g of sugar per 100g, less than half that of other brands.
One nice thing about Augason Farms is that they actually advertise the amount of protein per day their meal kits contain. For example, their 30-day kit has an average of 47 grams of protein per day. Compared to other companies, this amount is decent.
If you need more protein, you can always supplement the meals with some of the freeze-dried meat that Augason Farms sells in #10 cans. There are also plenty of bulk protein options for vegetarians too.
The amount of sodium in the meals is high but in line with most other brands.
The meals are low in vitamins and minerals, though the meat-based meals contain a decent amount of iron and potassium. However, most of the food kits include Morning Moo’s, which provides calcium and is fortified with vitamins A and D, and banana chips, which are a good source of iron.
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms really excels when it comes to shelf life. Most of their foods have a shelf life of 30 years. By contrast, other companies only offer 25 years.
Their products which contain a lot of fat (butter, milk, cheese, etc.) do have shorter shelf lives of 10 years. However, this is normal and you can’t expect better than this with fatty foods.
It is slightly frustrating that their food kits contain items with different shelf lives. You’d have to, for example, remove the cheese powder from the kit after 10 years but leave other items in place. But, realistically, this isn’t a massive chore if you’re only doing it once a decade!
Once open, the #10 cans last up to a year, so you don’t have to worry about eating the same meal every day for a week.
Food in the emergency grab-and-go pails is individually packaged inside the pail. The pails are sturdy and square, making them easy to stack, though you’ll need a bung/drum wrench to open them.
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms offers some of the best value disaster food on the market. Their 30-day kit currently breaks down to $6.67 per day. This is about half of what you’d pay with other companies for similar calorie amounts.
Their #10 cans of freeze-dried food are very good value. It’s almost impossible to find a brand selling these foods for less while still having a long shelf life.
On top of that, Augason Farms often has good sales so keep an eye on Amazon for discounts.
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms products are widely available. You can find their products at Walmart and Amazon. However, I am only giving them 3 stars because their products are often out of stock
Primal Rating:
Augason Farms is generally well-reviewed in terms of customer service. Their website is informative and transparent, with a comprehensive FAQ page.
Unlike other companies, they don’t have a loyalty program or offer free samples. It’s a shame you can’t try before you buy, but understandable given the low cost of their food.
Augason Farms offers some decent meal kits and a fantastic range of bulk freeze-dried foods for people who want make their own meals during an emergency. Compared to other companies, Augason Farms is very affordable and has a great variety of options.
Just pay attention to how many servings you get of each product with their kits. And make sure you have a stove and fuel stockpiled for their meals which require cooking.
For further survival food companies reviews see:
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