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Business Is Booming for America’s Survival Food King
A year of natural disasters and nuclear threats has suburbanites turning to Wise Co.’s Aaron Jackson, just in case.
By
Amanda Little
More stories by Amanda Little
November 22, 2017 5:00 AM
On Monday, Sept. 25, five days after Hurricane Maria pounded Puerto Rico, Aaron Jackson got a LinkedIn notification on his phone from Michael Lee, supply chain and inventory manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Contact me right away,” it read, followed by a number. Jackson was at Blue Lemon, a fast-casual restaurant in Sandy, Utah, outside Salt Lake City, eating dinner with his family. He stepped outside and dialed.
Lee needed help, fast: FEMA was running low on food rations. In the previous four weeks, the agency had supplied millions of meals to the Texans and South Floridians displaced by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Maria had created a third disaster zone with more complex logistics, having knocked out Puerto Rico’s electricity, gutted its roads, and destroyed its markets and ports. Restoring food security on the island could take months. Lee had to procure millions of servings of just-add-water meals to sustain the victims. Could Jackson provide at least 2 million and begin deliveries immediately?
Jackson is the 42-year-old chief executive officer of Wise Co., a leading brand in survival foods, that is, Mylar pouches of freeze-dried meals such as Savory Stroganoff and Loaded Baked Potato Casserole designed to remain edible on shelves for a quarter century. Over the past several years, the prepper phenomenon—people geared for imminent disaster—has come out of the backwoods via shows like the National Geographic Channel’s Doomsday Prepper and media reports of the very rich and very worried buying and fortifying luxury bunkers. Jackson’s been positioning Wise to feed the trend. During the call, he felt a rush of conflicting emotions—not so much from the prospect of getting a fat government contract while legions of people suffer, but because the windfall could derail his business strategy. A 2-million-serving order will increase his sales for 2017 about 15 percent but stretch his supply more than he’s comfortable with; his answer to Lee was not an easy yes.
Jackson has filled many emergency orders, including supplies for Ebola victims in Liberia and for people in the Philippines devastated by 2013’s earthquake. Carnival Cruise Line has stocked Wise pouches at its Caribbean ports to feed employees when storms rock the region. Just a few days before the FEMA call, the Salvation Army purchased 100,000 servings of Wise products for Florida shelters near areas affected by Hurricane Irma.
More at ...
Business Is Booming for America’s Survival Food King
A year of natural disasters and nuclear threats has suburbanites turning to Wise Co.’s Aaron Jackson, just in case.
By
Amanda Little
More stories by Amanda Little
November 22, 2017 5:00 AM
On Monday, Sept. 25, five days after Hurricane Maria pounded Puerto Rico, Aaron Jackson got a LinkedIn notification on his phone from Michael Lee, supply chain and inventory manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Contact me right away,” it read, followed by a number. Jackson was at Blue Lemon, a fast-casual restaurant in Sandy, Utah, outside Salt Lake City, eating dinner with his family. He stepped outside and dialed.
Lee needed help, fast: FEMA was running low on food rations. In the previous four weeks, the agency had supplied millions of meals to the Texans and South Floridians displaced by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Maria had created a third disaster zone with more complex logistics, having knocked out Puerto Rico’s electricity, gutted its roads, and destroyed its markets and ports. Restoring food security on the island could take months. Lee had to procure millions of servings of just-add-water meals to sustain the victims. Could Jackson provide at least 2 million and begin deliveries immediately?
Jackson is the 42-year-old chief executive officer of Wise Co., a leading brand in survival foods, that is, Mylar pouches of freeze-dried meals such as Savory Stroganoff and Loaded Baked Potato Casserole designed to remain edible on shelves for a quarter century. Over the past several years, the prepper phenomenon—people geared for imminent disaster—has come out of the backwoods via shows like the National Geographic Channel’s Doomsday Prepper and media reports of the very rich and very worried buying and fortifying luxury bunkers. Jackson’s been positioning Wise to feed the trend. During the call, he felt a rush of conflicting emotions—not so much from the prospect of getting a fat government contract while legions of people suffer, but because the windfall could derail his business strategy. A 2-million-serving order will increase his sales for 2017 about 15 percent but stretch his supply more than he’s comfortable with; his answer to Lee was not an easy yes.
Jackson has filled many emergency orders, including supplies for Ebola victims in Liberia and for people in the Philippines devastated by 2013’s earthquake. Carnival Cruise Line has stocked Wise pouches at its Caribbean ports to feed employees when storms rock the region. Just a few days before the FEMA call, the Salvation Army purchased 100,000 servings of Wise products for Florida shelters near areas affected by Hurricane Irma.
More at ...
Business Is Booming for America’s Survival Food King
