10:13 – I’ve commented before about how LTS food is going mainstream. For the last three years or so, Costco, Walmart, and Sam’s Club have all featured it on their websites and in their advertising circulars. Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article on the increasing popularity and widespread appeal of “bunker food”.
Amazon is late to the party, but they’ve now jumped in with both feet. For a couple years, they’ve been selling some LTS food, mostly Mountain House freeze-dried, and mostly at very high prices. I check their site periodically, because I’d rather order Augason Farms stuff from Amazon than from Walmart. Until recently, they carried only a few AF products and often priced them at or above retail. The other night, I checked again and found that Amazon now offers the full range of AF products, and at prices that are sometimes competitive with WalMart, although usually moderately to significantly higher. Some of them, Amazon actually stocks, but a lot of them are from third-party vendors fulfilled by Amazon.
For example, Amazon now offers a can of AF butter powder for $19.56, same price as Walmart, and a can of whole egg powder for $31.51, only four cents higher than Walmart’s $31.47. Amazon charges $18.32 per can for AF Cheese Blend Powder, versus only $17.41 on Walmart. Some things are a lot more expensive on Amazon, such as bell peppers at $18.44 per can versus only $12.31 on Walmart, or bacon TVP at $11.99 versus only $9.32 on Walmart. I compared a couple of dozen products, and found that Amazon averaged about 11% higher than Walmart. Amazon has some work to do if they want to compete with Walmart, but it’s nice to see them at least getting into the competition.