Ready Wise Struggles After Revamping Company

Not too long ago Wise Foods company decided to take their company in a new direction after what many believe came after their 2015 class action law suit in California a customer accused the Wise Company of deceptively advertising its food kits. In particular, the company touted various food kits as sufficient to sustain a particular number of people, for a length of time as a part of disaster preparedness. While they concluded after the law suit that they would not tell a customer what all the package would feed (How many people), this still did not stop Wise / Ready Wise from listing serving sizes on their Adventure Meals and Bucket Meal plans which is against what they agreed too and theya re back too their old tricks. It also came out in this court case that Wise Foods release customer information to the Government during the court case and while Wise denying this, they did admit too release select customer information to a third part in Kentucky as part of the court case. In our opinion this is bad enough as this so-called third part could be compelled to release this to the courts or the Government. If it is released too the Courts it becomes public record and then the Government can get it more readily and see who is so-called stock pilling food and target them as many are afraid the Gov is already doing. This in our opinion why you should not be purchasing directly from Wise / Ready Wise company and only by from someone like us that does not keep customer records. We also found it ironic that they settled out of court for an unknown specified amount of money to the original complainant and others received a certain dollar amount for each meal package they purchased during a specified time frame; so they were guilty of something! Many believe this cause such a black eye on the company they had no choice other than revamp the company and cause them to change their name. While this took place in the “Sue Me State” of California and probably was a frivolous law suit, not long ago in the Spring of 2021 (6 years later) someone at a Gulf Coast Trade Show brought up this law suit too us, so this is still being talked about further causing damage and harm to the Wise / Ready Wise company name either directly or in-directly! Seems like their foods are still being sold today in the Wise Brands in some markets and Ready wise in other markets and they have no idea what's going on. While they changed their name years ago, we were still receiving Wise products that were out of date bya year being sent too us as dealers for them and it was like pulling teeth to get them to fix the problem. In one case, we got them to forward us so-called new product three times and each time their shipping department shipped us old labeled (WISE) out of date product; we finally opted for a refund and choose not to order that product again! Others felt this could be too close to home as another company named Wise Foods; a potato chip and snack company was also sued in court for violating practices pertaining to packaging, how much it too would feed and amount of product in the bag, similar to Wise Emergency Foods Company so they wanted to distance themselves from anything thinking they were the same company. If you Google Wise today, you will get the Potato Chip & Snack Company, however many of the Ready Wise employees still have a Wise.com Email, isn't this odd?. I will state for the record, EveryDay Preppers was unaware of this 2015-2019 law suit when we started offering this Ready Wise products but I will say I feel they have done a great job / attempt to revamp their company but they still have a long way to go as this so-called new management has major issues in the packaging department, shipping, customer support – taking care of customers and dealers!

Sometime after the law suit, new manager took over and Wise changed their name to Ready Wise and came out with a new name, new logo, new mascot (Sammy The Squirrel) and new ad campaign and videos. Notice how they also use the same color scheme as Mountain House (Black, Red & White); I am sure this was on purpose!

Some believe they wanted to take the company in a new direction when new management took over and they started copying Mountain House Food Brands ideas; a 50 year old company’s formula and branding when they came out with the new branding with a close copy meal brand called Adventure Meals which mirrors Mountain House Adventure Meals.

Mountain House Foods got their start from hiring someone from General Foods in the 1960’s and helped create the first Military C-Rays / K-Rays Foods for the Armed Services and later moved into the Emergency Foods market after the war when they found people loved their foods and asked for more and more. They later found a huge market in the Hiking and Camping markets and called that brand Adventure Meals which ironically Ready Wise copied after their rebranding thinking they too could tap into the Hiking & Camping market too. Ready Wise seems to now offer more meal varieties plus fruits and vegetables which Mountain House doesn’t offer but Ready Wise still has internal issues with packaging, rotation of their product, and shipping current packaged product lines to their customers. Dealers like myself are getting old packaged product mixed in with new packaged shipment proving they have a major problem with rotation of the product line and / or lack of understating about shipping out old product before you release a new product packaging line and their customer service people and account manager do not seem to understand the concept of providing new, fresh product to their customers.

Ready Wise appears to have copied many of the Mountain House freeze dried formula meals but many feel Ready Wise Meals are lacking in taste and thickness of the food. While YouTube videos consistently show Mountain House meals taste better and have a better look over most any other food tested. Many feel most YouTube Product Review Testing like this can be manipulated and give false reviews as you never see the whole story. If the food company is giving the food to the reviewers for free, the reviewers have an obligation to be biased and not give an accurate / true review of the product. One such company was given 31 meals and did a so-called review and you can tell by their review they were biased for that brand the entire time making their so-called review invalid and a waste of time! One of the two reviewers made every excuse in the book when one meal came out too watery and stated he could have mixed it wrong. If this is true, his earlier review of Ready Wise could have been wrong and mixed badly too and he just didn't own up too it because Mountain House was giving him free food. Also in most reviews they are not testing Apples-2-Apples. In one review a Reviewer Tested MH Adventure Meal to Ready Wise Bucket Meals which are totally different. If you have an understanding of the way Ready Wise does their meals, they offer three different meals plans: 3 year, 15 year and 25 year. If this Reviewer truly wanted to compare these products, he would have compared Mountain House Adventure Meals to Ready Wise Adventure Meals. According to Ready Wise Management, this YT Reviewer was contacted and he refused to redo his review, even when offered free product too use for the retest (Ready Wise Adventure Meals). It was later proven that he was sponsored by Mountain House and he was a MH Fan Boy which always Skews the actual test results and proves this test was not unbiased. While he promises to do other food test on other products, this has yet to be done as we are sure he is waiting too see if he can get more free food for the review! The last review they did was 2 months ago further supporting what I mentioned.

I, for one would encourage you to do your own testing and judge for yourself. We have people that swear by Ready Wise and others that swear by Mountain House. We have recently "purchased" our own Mountain House Adventure Meals and will be trying them out ourselves.

This is not meant to be any type comparison back to back like others have done, but rather, do we like it, would we buy it again and would we add it too our Emergency Go Kits or Bug In Supplies. I am not interested in slamming one company vs. another like the above mentioned have done; it is more about would I buy this for my family and have supplies of it. What I can testify too is this. Since our first order, Ready Wise has had major issues with fulfillment and packaging and product rotation of their product and I have witnessed this myself. From our first order from Ready Wise, we had issues! We received product in old Wise Packaging that is short coded and in one case out of date. This tells me it was already several years old when it was shipped too me meaning I did not get fresh, current product. They sent out three additional shipments to make it right and each shipment was wrong and they ended up crediting us because they could not guarantee shipping department could get it right! This took well over a month, closer too six weeks. In our last order, we received what we were told was new product in old WISE packaging. Why would any company put new product in old packaging from just because they have a few old Mylar packaging envelopes lying around? Doesn’t seem like good business and something any company worth their salt would do!

When ordering product we dealt with the so-called National Accounts Manager: Nic Zarbock who promised he would make sure we got current product in current packaging. They ended up shipping us product three times and not one time was it ever right and each time it was wrong and in old WISE packaging and this was months ago. They had too issue us a credit in the end because their warehouse & shipping department was unable to pull merchandise that was current & correct. In our most recent purchase of Simply Kitchen, Bananas, we were told by Zarbock after three cases came in wrong Zarbock stated someone has to get it so why not me? Are you serious? This tells me, you have so much old stock sitting around the warehouse you are just waiting to ship it out to get rid of it to someone and why in the hell would you put it in old packaging? Zarbock stated it was new product put in old packaging. This supposedly has a 3 year shelf life but based on the printing on the package it is a little far short on the 3 year shelf life too ad wasn't exactly fresh. So, it is already 1 year short when we got it and our customers would not get the 3 years promised and this is not the fresh product Zarbock stated was just packaged to use up their old packaging envelopes; another lie by Zarbock and Ready Wise! My complaint to Ready Wise was / is; I do not mind getting the 1-2 year old product as long as I do not pay full price. Offer me a clearance price or something. They have yet to offer any discount and while they stated they would issue a call back ticket, they have yet to do so! Why would anyone buy from them in the future if you do not know what you are going to get; current product or 1-2 year old dated product? I also do not want 1-2 year old product when it has a shelf life of 3-5 years either! Another major issue I have with Ready Wise is: I do not like about Ready Wise is they have three different code dates and it is already confusing. Their Simple Kitchen line have one expire date of 3 years, while the Adventure Meal line have another date of 15 years and their buckets and long term meals have a third date of 25 years. Mountain House has all one date, 30 Years! Ready Wise does have one major thing over Mountain House at the present time and that is they offer separate buckets of Fruit and Vegs where Mountain House does not offer this at this time! I will say: Ready Wise appears to be spending a ton of money to get into Big Box Stores, Wal Mart, Sam's, Costco but their prices are no great value as you can get the same and sometimes better deals from local Ready Wise Dealers. Just because it is in a Box Box, doesn't make it a deal! Another thing that our readers need to realize about Ready Wise is that over saturating the markets with their name and brand awareness. Every time you turn around on social media, you se some type of Ready Wise Ad. I guess I would with all the Bad Press they are getting from You Tubers and consumers that just do not like their product. Until they get a handle on 1. quality control (Taste, & consistency), as well as: 2. Customer Service, no amount of advertising will help them!

EveryDay Preppers is currently going to actively research other Emergency, Long Term Food options to offer our customers as it is obvious Ready Wise foods has some major growing pains under this new management and we cannot be guaranteed what we order is what we will get going forward! The National Accounts Manager, Nic Zarbock , whom we have been dealing with has been no help to us and most recently is only making up excuses and we are forced to look at our options to protect us, our livelihood and our customers! It is apparent Ready Wise is not the Ready Company they claim to be and they still have some major growing pains; it is obvious they still have issues in their production line, packing line, warehouse & shipping and getting the correct product to their customers & dealers. So, for EveryDay Preppers we have to do what is best for our company and look at the big picture. While they have some great attributes (Pros), right now the (Cons) out way the Pros for us and we have been forced to look into other long term food companies for our customers. We will be running all Ready Wise Products on reduced prices until we sell out of their product line.

Stay tunes as we have some exciting news to release coming soon on what new Emergency Food Line we will be carrying!