Emergency back-up: Daily Bread learns its own lesson in preparedness.

• Author: Kinder, Peri
• Position: Lessons Learned

Emergency food storage in Utah has come a long way since families stored hundreds of pounds of wheat under their beds. Now, several companies specialize in producing food storage products that last for a quarter-century, or more, and can be stored in a way that doesn't compromise quality.

Daily Bread is a big player in the state's food storage industry, providing freeze-dried products to thousands of customers across the state and the country. Its tagline is "Preparedness in Everything" and this concept was put to the test when Daily Bread experienced a serious glitch in its supply line.

The "Ah-hah!" Moment

Started by Justen Ericksen in 2005, Daily Bread was first thought up when he and his friends were contemplating the disastrous events of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Ericksen was practicing law in Las Vegas at the time, living in a small apartment with his wife and two children. All the talk about potential disasters made him wonder what his family would do in such a situation. Would they have enough food to survive a long-term tragedy? Where could they find sustainable food products?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Ericksen began researching different types of food storage processes and ended up focusing his attention on freeze-dried products. Talking with officials from the U.S. military and NASA, he discovered many freeze-dried products have a shelf life of at least 25 years. Additionally, he learned freeze-dried food storage products tend to retain flavor and nutritional value and are completely shelf stable.

Because there were no suppliers of freeze-dried products in Utah, Ericksen researched suppliers across the country, eventually acquiring a contact that could create the homemade recipes for Ericksen's products (many of which he created himself) and seal them in #10 cans.

Now, Daily Bread provides gourmet food storage in 1-, 3-, 6-or 12-month meal plans, along with an a la carte menu.

"I was still in debt from law school, but I thought, 'I'm going to start a food storage business,'" Ericksen says. "We went door-to-door in Arizona [selling food storage products] and, at the end of the summer, we were blown away by the response."

A Global Disaster

As the orders rolled in, Daily Bread's supplier would ship to a distribution center in Utah where orders were filled and sent to customers. Ericksen was dealing with large quantities of product on a weekly basis but, in 2008, the company's manufacturer had a jump in demand across the country and...