May 1, 2011 Update: MH is nearly caught up with the scads of backorders that had piled up months ago for their cans (and more recently pouches too). Safecastle is in fact taking delivery of several hundred cases of cans this week and will making them available for sale in the USA this week. They will go fast, but we expect to see continual improvement and growing availability of MH cans going forward. (Canadian MH varieties should be coming available again in a few weeks.)
March 3, 2011 Update: The remaining 8% of the MH dealer network has been asked today to stop taking orders for MH cans. The factory is several months behind in filling the orders that are already in hand. So we have removed all MH can listings from our store until further notice. MH pouches may have to go soon as well since those are now flying out the door as well.
My warning to our friends and customers that this was in process first went out about six months ago. It was clear that a panic level of buying was setting in across the emergency food industry. Consumers who are new to preparedness are stampeding the emergency food marketplace. I'm not sure we've even dealt with the worst of it yet.
Those of you who have taken heed of the signs, good for you. Those who have procrastinated--I'm sorry. At this point we can continue to help you out with our many other food brands. They too are dealing with demand surges--some are still dealing better than others. But this is going to mean that those other foods are now going to be inundated with the overflow from what has primarily been swamping MH.
Feb. 23, 2011 Update: Contrary to rumors, the huge demand surge on Mountain House foods (as well as all other food storage brands) is NOT due to government orders. This is about consumer demand, almost reaching panic levels. As of today, the MH manufacturer is still dealing with inventory and growing backlog issues.
A majority of the MH dealer network has been suspended to try to manage order throughput (Safecastle remains an active dealer.) Similarly, several of the MH food varieties have now been temporarily discontinued to allow for the factory to focus on the more popular varieties.
Some can-case orders are at this point taking as long as two months to fully deliver to the customer from the factory as they are shipping and depleting food varieties as fast as they can produce them. The queues keep getting longer. Do not wait.
_____________________
Original post-Dec. 2, 2010: I have been sounding the alarm for a while now. We have seen this developing over the last several weeks and months, folks. At this point, the entire emergency storage food industry is in chaos with a level of surging demand that suppliers' capacity cannot handle.
Many of the most popular foods, across all the brands, quickly disappear out of stock, even shortly after being restocked in warehouses. Most are quickly returning as that happens, but those out-of-stock periods are getting longer and longer. Factory capacities are being overwhelmed, and indications frankly are that we have seen nothing yet.
The demand surge continues to trend upward. Fast.
Companies in the industry are scrambling to continue to deliver as best as possible. But it's beginning to hurt ... at least if you are buyer who needs to stock up today.
Tomorrow it's going to be much more painful.
Effective Immediately, Mountain House Dealers Have Weekly Maximum Can-Case Quotas
Anyway--this post is specifically about an action that Oregon Freeze Dry has taken with it's dealers, effective immediately. Bottom line--we have a weekly maximum order quota on can cases. Those quotas are very tight for us and in no time at all, our customers are going to be dealing with very long wait times for their MH can-case orders to process and deliver. (Pouches are not yet affected.)
The best way to share what we are facing is to provide you with the actual text of the letter, which Melanie has agreed I can provide here (afterward, I will explain what we can do starting right now, if you need to place an order):
Dear Customer:
We regret to inform you Oregon Freeze Dry cannot satisfy all #10 can orders and meet our commitments to other market segments. Sales of #10 cans have continued to surge at a significant level. OFD is allocating as much of our Production Capacity as possible to this market segment, but it isn’t nearly enough.
We’re sure you’ve noticed your lead times have pushed further and further out, and it just isn’t realistic to continue to do this. Therefore it has become necessary to go to an allocation program for our long-time, largest customers/distributors.
As one of those long-time, largest customers, an allocation amount of 90 cases per week has been reserved for Safecastle effective at once, with shipments beginning December 27, 2010.
Between now and December 27, 2010 we will be focusing on filling only current open orders. Then beginning December 27th, we will only be shipping to those dealers that have been given an allocation amount. Any order placed today through December 27th, will be placed in the allocation folder and shipments will not begin until December 27th and only in the amount of your weekly allocation amount. Your weekly allocation cannot be carried over to the following week. If we do not have an open order for your account, your allocation amount will be used elsewhere.
In addition I wanted to let you know what other decision we have made as a direct result of your inventory situation. 1) We have removed all cans from our own website and 2) we stopped accepting new dealer accounts. Both of these actions were done several weeks ago.
We expect this situation to be necessary for several months, although we cannot foresee the future so this isn’t a guarantee. We will re-evaluate in January/February and let you know if we have an update.
Sincerely,
Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc.
Melanie Cornutt
Sales Manager, Retail
So the good news is that Safecastle will be able to continue as a MH dealer in good standing, submitting can case orders totaling up to 90 cases every week, beginning Dec. 27. Also good -- there are no price increases at this point.
What this means to you, effective immediately ...
In the meantime, we are taking
MH can-case orders and placing them in a queue to be submitted Dec. 27. If and when we exceed 90 cases, those overage orders will need to be submitted to MH the following week. We anticipate that our order queue and all other dealers' who retain ordering privileges will quickly fill out weekly quotas that will extend further and further into next year.
Folks--I know many of you are well-prepared. That is great. Those of you who are not--this is your big heads-up. Time is now obviously of the essence. I sincerely believe this is only the beginning of a food crisis that is going to balloon into a day-to-day 2011 emergency across the USA.
.
.
