As a proponent of minimalism, our simplistic packaging has always made sense. Its compact size enfolds each meal, leaving no wasted space. Our 7-day backpacking food combo (a total of 22 meal packets) is so efficient for packing that it merely takes up 500 cubic inches (~8 L) of volume in an average 9 to 10 L bear canister.
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| Outdoor Herbivore 22 single meals packed in the 10 L Garcia Bear Canister. | |
While these compact packets are exceptional for packing and saving weight, they’re not so good for preparing food. As you can see below, there’s barely enough room to pour water in the current packaging, making rehydration of the food inside nearly impossible.
Because our packaging isn’t large enough to accommodate added water for most of our products, it often means having to transfer the dry trail food to another container just to mix it up with water. If you need to boil water to make a hot meal, you might use your cookpot to soak the meal which can leave you a mess to clean up. Scraping off encrusted food particles from cooking pots can be an onerous task in the wilderness, especially when water is scarce or far away.
One way to eliminate the hassle of dish clean up is to provide a larger disposable pouch. Many of you have been requesting this from us for years. And that is reasonable because it’s the de-facto standard in this industry.
Here’s a snapshot of responses in the last 30 days from our ongoing survey where we ask this question in different ways.
We ran another survey in 2019, specifically asking Outdoor Herbivore’s customers, “How do you prefer to rehydrate your trail meals?”
Preference for Preparing Backpacking Food
(Disposable Pouch vs. Separate Container)
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| 2019 Outdoor Herbivore survey results, “How do you prefer to prepare (reconstitute) trail meals — in the pouch or a separate container/cooking pot? | |
More than half prefer to rehydrate trail meals (hot and cold) in the pouch.
Why didn’t you do this already? Outdoor Herbivore never liked the idea of eating a meal out of a plastic bag, especially not a hot meal. The effort we put in to make clean, organic food and expecting it to be prepared by “adding boiling water to the plastic bag” didn’t align with our views. We felt it was contradictory to our mission. So we never packaged our food with that expectation in mind. And we’re darn stubborn.
But so are you 🙂
Is it possible to package your meals in those boil-soak bags instead? I’m going to have to do this anyway.
In 2018, we began offering reusable “boil-soak” plastic pouches as a separate option for backpackers. These pouches are custom manufactured to be watertight and hold heated food up to 230F/110C degrees. Short and wide, they are easier for pouring and scooping. Furthermore, the structure is durable enough to be washed and reused a few more times, if desired. While this is an okay solution in the interim, it is not ideal. Admittedly, it’s a compromised solution. It allowed us to keep our packaging the way we wanted it while providing you a heat-safe pouch as an alternative option.
Since then, we can see there is an overwhelming preference for these rehydration pouches. This further confirms that our current packaging isn’t what the community wants. It also means we’re contributing to more waste since many of you have to purchase these added pouches.
Thus, a packaging redesign will be rolling out soon.
While the new pouches will be less compact in size, they’ll be short and wide enough so bits of food won’t cling to your wrist. They’ll safely handle boiling water and be less plasticky.
Our new packaging will be rolled out on a per-product basis. You may receive some meals in the original packaging and other meals in the new packaging until everything has been thoroughly tested and transitioned.
Here’s a quick glance at a test pouch.
Outdoor Herbivore’s packaging redesign goals: compact, sustainable, barrier-proof, waterproof, and heat-safe. Interested in hearing about the challenges we faced in meeting all of these points? Have any other comments?
4 thoughts on “We’re Overdue for a Package Redesign”
hello, what kind of material is the barrier made of plastic? I am searching for a plant based and compostable packaging for freeze dry meals.
Standard compostable pouches often use a PLA coating which isn’t enough barrier protection for packaging freeze-dried food. You need a high MVTR (moisture vapor transition rate) barrier. This can be accomplished by coating pouches with additional substances, such as Aluminum Oxide and Silicon Oxide.
These bags are great! Do you or will you have a light-blocking layer to the plastic? I ordered some recently and they are all clear. What is the material you would use to provide a light barrier for the food?
The boil cook bags that we sell will remain clear. The advantage is that you can see any food residue for cleaning for reuse. Our backpacking meals are now all packed in light-blocking heat-safe pouches. These are not intended for reuse.