The Food Storage Blog

Hey y’all, looks like its time for my semi-annual post!  Yes, my blog is sad, I know, but someday I will be able to warp time and space and clone myself 7 times so I can get everything done every day that I want to!  I actually have a couple of posts lined up so it’ll have a flurry of activity for February at least.=)

My beautiful bebbies!

Personal Life Update:  And these babies are why; please welcome Dagny Abigail (left) and Liberty Belle (right), our beautiful twins, into this crazy world!  Prepping is an act of preparing for the unexpected.  And while the girls were definitely unexpected, my wife and I had already ordered our life in such a way that what might be a crazy emergency for those who don’t prep, for those of us who do it was more like ‘Groovy, scary, crazy, but in the end, it’ll be ok!’  I’ll have an entire post on how my wife and I felt and acted before, during, and now, in terms of living a prepared lifestyle.

New Product Update:  We’ve gone back into production for another full truckload of product, due to arrive in late March (Lord I hope the cold is long gone before having to spend the day unloading!).  Included in the new shipment are a couple of additional bag sizes in the awesome ShieldPro material.  Like all of our new styles, these were requested by customers.  (So if you think of something you need, let us know, we just might make 10,000 of them!)  I’ve added a new small zip-seal bag, a 6″x6″.  I’m always surprised by how many of our 4″x4″ bags we sell to folks wanting to store spices and supplements in their 5 gallon buckets.  I’ve had requests for something just a touch larger but not as big as our 1-quart bag (8.25″x8.25″), so we’re getting a test run of 10,000 units.  We’re also adding another zip seal to the line, ensuring we will now have a zip seal available in all our main sizes.  It is a 2-gallon Zip (14″x20″), a size I’ve been surprised to find some folks storing water in.  I’ll do some testing of that process myself and if it goes well, will do another post on that subject.

New Business Update:  A pet project I’ve had on my mind since I started Advice and Beans was a wholesale website designed just for prep store owners.  That project is now coming to fruition, as through negotiations with the previous owners, we were able to acquire the premiere domain name for our niche.  Our wholesale site is now live at www.mylarbags.com.  Like most folks who have sold food storage supplies, there is one place on the ‘Net that comes up first in most search results and offers wholesale Mylar Bags and Oxygen Absorbers (among other things).  However, after dealing with that company for a good long time (over a year), I came to understand why most people leave them quickly:  incredibly poor customer service, overpriced shipping, and inflexibility.

Mylarbags.com is our answer to that 700-pound gorilla.  We are making it as easy as possible for prep-store owners (whether brick-and-mortar or online) to source their goods.  First, our prices are better or competitive to anyplace on the ‘Net.  And that doesn’t count the additional discounting for pallet and truckload sized orders.  Everything on the site offers free shipping to the Continental US, so there is no going back and forth trying to nail down what that will cost. (one huge pain point I have had in the past with wholesale suppliers)  There is even an additional discount for orders paid with Cashier’s Checks, ACH, or Postal Money Orders as we pass on the savings from not have to pay a credit card processing fee.

We offer kitting in any combination the customer needs at a very reasonable cost per unit.  So we can ship in bulk if you need, however for folks doing gun and prep shows, our pre-made kits are a great time-saver.  If you like, we can even source kit-bags with your 1-color art (and appropriate lead time) as low as $.20/unit.  I am also personally available (as always!) to answer any questions or offer any advice to make your business successful.

So if you run a survival store or know someone who does, I hope you will send them our way and let us show them how customers should really be treated!=)

It’s looking to be an awesome 2014!  On top of the above, we’ll run some giveaways (my wife picked up yet another copy of a Rawles’ book I’ve read twice!) starting next week, hope to see you here!