UPDATE: JULY 2017 After 3 decades in the preparedness business Harry Weyandt has closed shop. For now the site is sharing preparedness articles but you are no longer able to buy from their website. While Harry and team may have retired the site will likely pick back up at some point when a buyer comes through with a good enough offer. For now we will leave our review up. It is found directly below this message.
For over 32 years Nitro Pak has been providing emergency preparedness supplies and food storage, we have some great info to pass along in our Nitro Pak review. For example, a lot of businesses have come and gone in the time Nitro Pak has been in business. The food storage stalwart is based out of Heber City Utah, a mere stone’s throw from its more famous neighbor Park City. The company is family owned and operated.
Aside from just selling emergency preparedness items, Nitro Pak also has their own private label food product line under the Nitro Pak Premium Reserves name. The line contains a variety of dehydrated foods as well as freeze-dried foods.
Nitro Pak differs from its biggest competitors in that it does not have ready made meals under their private label brand but instead offers other manufacturers’ meals , names like Mountain House, Backpackers Pantry, and Wise Foods. For brand variety you won’t get any more selection at one stop than with Nitro Pak.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
To start out our Nitro Pak review we felt it important to dig deep into customer service first, afterall a company is only as good as its ability to service its customers. Over the past 3 years, Shawn and I have placed a variety of orders from Nitro Pak’s website and have had very good experiences dealing with their team of customer service agents. We have yet to try to go to their warehouse location which does not appear to have drive up ordering (at least from what I could find online).
As for reaching out to Nitro Pak they can be contacted via their customer service email, phone, and through a handy online chat feature that seems to be gaining popularity online. For me I prefer the instant answers that come from chatting with a person within a minute or two. Unlike a phone call I can quickly get the conversation started and it doesn’t burn cell phone minutes.
As for problem resolution, Nitro Pak did a great job on an the various orders we placed but one in particular impressed us. It appeared the shipping service played football with the box and the cans were dented pretty good. Nitro Pak helped me return the product and get new ones sent right back out. No expense to us at all. I feel good that they will stand behind their products and services and that means a lot.
PRICING
Nitro Pak also has very good prices. They are consistently right there with the best prices you will see from their competitors. They also like to have sales promotions which I love. They typically have a monthly sale and from time to time a shorter duration sale will be emailed out to their newsletter subscribers.
One of our favorite things about Nitro Pak is their low flat rate shipping of $9.50 an order. No matter how much you spend it will cost only $9.50 to get your order to your door. This is the lowest of the companies we have ordered from. We appreciate simple shipping fees when shopping, no sticker shock when it comes time to check out and the flat rate is just easier than other’s shipping policies.
FOOD STORAGE
Nitro Pak carries 4 brands of food storage, Mountain House, their own brand named called Rocky Mountain Food Reserves, Wise Food Storage, and Backpackers Pantry. Unlike some companies that only carry their own brand or only carry Mountain House (the most popular national brand), Nitro Pak gives you some serious options by carrying a total of four brands. For those that want to try a little from the different brands they can do so all in one order.
These four different food storage brands come packaged in a variety of ways. Mountain House can be purchased in 2 and 4 serving pouches as well as the very popular #10 cans. Backpackers Pantry comes in #10 cans and pouches, while Wise Food has their meals, meats, and fruits in pouches (then placed in buckets). Lastly, the Nitro Pak store brand under the name Rocky Mountain Food Reserves comes in #10 cans.
As for food storage kits, Nitro Pak also has a 1 month, 45 day, 6 month, and 12 month food storage kit for adults. Their kits vary from just add water meals and items to individual components that you put together and cook to make a meal though we wish that there was a food storage calculator that’d help plan purchases based on one’s family. What you can do instead is talk to their sales team which can give great advice based on your families particular needs. We also get a little confused by all of the different brands in their supply kits. When you have so many different brands it can get a little confusing shopping for bulk purchases and knowing exactly what you are getting.
PRODUCT SELECTION
Nitro-Pak has a significant product catalog. While I didn’t add them all up their customer service rep claimed it was in the thousand range which isn’t hard to imagine as you browse across the site. The products that are carried vary from MREs, freeze dried ice cream (they have a lot to pick from here), water storage and treatment, 72 hour bug out bags, and a wide variety of emergency supplies suited for grab-n-go situation as well as sheltering in one place like stoves and emergency radios.
The variety of products means you could browse the site until you fall asleep from lack of rest and thanks to the well design website it is easy to get around, definitely one of our favorite sites (we’ll go into further detail about that later).
PRODUCT QUALITY
We have only been purchasing from Nitro Pak for about 12 months now and in that time have placed a grand total of 3 orders. One of the orders were freeze dried foods that we didn’t test but the other two were more outdoors related and all of the items did their job. Over time we will have more to add here as our experiences grow but we see no reason to think that Nitro Paks product quality is up to par with the other big players in the industry.
WEBSITE
*UPDATE: They have launched a new website in the past month which is even better. Now it will resize itself based on which device you are using (smartphone vs tablet vs desktop/laptop) which makes it easier to use. We will be updating this section soon!*
An important aspect in our Nitro Pak review is their website, after all most people have to buy from them online. Good news it is easy to navigate and easy on the eyes compared to some other preparedness websites. The tabs along the top are readily available to pull you back out of whatever path you took. While we are not huge fans of the site’s appearance (colors and aesthetics) that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. We would much rather have a well design site than a pretty one that was hard to navigate.
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Once you get to a product page you are presented good information. We liked how some products had additional images so you could see the product at different angles. There were also videos on some pages and I hope they add more as they are nice to watch. They don’t take you to a Youtube channel to watch but keep you on the product page which is real nice. We also liked the specs and details which allow you to learn as much as possible without having to bug the customer service team with questions
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The sites navigation makes it easy to find what you want as does the search feature. With so many products it might save you a lot of time if you know what you want.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Nitro Pak’s biggest shortfall by far is the lack of resources for the shopper to read (or watch) and learn from. While their product page does a good job educating the customer about the particular product there is no resource center filled with articles, videos, recipes, and other useful insights. Their competitors do it and from a company with this selection and many years in business you know that they would have some great information to share those that are looking to learn as well as purchase products . The blog has 2 posts at the time of this review yet it gets its own prominent tab on the home page and their Facebook page where people can gather and discuss all things Nitro Pak is bare as an unprepared person’s pantry.
The Nitro Pak YouTube channel is also sparse with a total of two videos. We hope that this increases and we have reason to believe since both videos on their channel have been uploaded within the last month (as of the time of this review). They have great products and a great website but feel there should be more information.
OVERALL SCORE
In conclusion, while doing our Nitro Pak review we noticed they consistently had some of the best deals on the internet along with a wide choice of food brands. Their website has improved greatly over the past year and is much easier to navigate and learn about the products that are offered. The fact that they have been in the business for so long and continue on making worthwhile changes is a testament to their ability to serve the customer and get it right while evolving with the customer and how they buy food storage online! This concludes our Nitro Pak review!
Go and check out the Nitro-Pak website now.
UPDATE: JULY 2017 After 3 decades in the preparedness business Harry Weyandt has closed shop. For now the site is sharing preparedness articles but you are no longer able to buy from their website. While Harry and team may have retired the site will likely pick back up at some point when a buyer comes through with a good enough offer. For now we will leave our review up. It is found directly below this message. For over 32 years Nitro Pak has been providing emergency preparedness supplies and food storage, we have some great info to pass along in… Not the cream of the crop but far from as bad as other companies in the industry. Their longevity proves it.
