A few weeks ago I blogged about the rise in world food prices and wide spread crop failure, and I touched on how food security could become an issue here in the UK in the future, a problem already faced by millions around the world.

During the winter snow fall, I (and hopefully you) also saw how fragile our own supply chain is with supermarkets running out of food in just a day or two when the HGVs can’t get through and people “panic buy” (Daily Mail story). Then again, you may think I am completely mad!

Flooding regularly affects many parts of the UK

Nonetheless, this blog is all about being prepared for these eventualities, and as you have now hopefully thought about your emergency water storage needs, I will now start to look at emergency food and why it is important.

What is emergency food?

Emergency food can take form in many ways. The most basic is ensuring that you never run out of a few basic items in your cupboard, such as rice or pasta, and perhaps some jars or tins of sauces along with some tinned or dried fruit etc, things which you know will last and if you ever couldn’t get to the supermarket would keep you fed for a day or two.

Of course, this could be part of your 72 hour survival kit already, but either way, it does not take much to buy an extra jar or tin a on your weekly shop to make sure that you always have something to fall back on and Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) offers can be a great way to get you started. You might even keep the food in a separate place to ensure you don’t use it by mistake, or just replace it immediately.

At the other end of the scale are emergency food supplies of six months to a year or more, which would protect and provide for you and your family from any problems arising from local or national disasters, or even civil unrest.

Freeze dried food can last for 25 years

But we don’t have disasters here!

People often assume that emergency food is only for times of national disaster, and because we live in the UK, we are rarely affected so don’t need to worry about it. Of course, we are regularly affected by local disasters (flooding, snow, water cut offs, etc.) which still affect thousands of people as well as the occasional large disaster, but emergency food does not have to be used only in these cases.

A few years ago my Dad was made redundant from a senior position on a huge construction project but as he was only two years from retirement he was unable to find another. Obviously this caused great financial strain for my parents, but as they had prepared themselves with adequate food storage, they always had enough food to eat, helping them to pay their bills and removing what would have been one of the largest worries in that situation.

So whether it is because of disaster, the economy, or you simply cannot get to the shops because of injury or sickness, an emergency food storage system can be worth many times over the time, effort and expense invested in building it.

It is important to remember that there are a number of ways to build your own food storage system, and it can be done over time or all at once.

In the next new posts I will be discussing the various ways and means of making your own so stay tuned for more!