The journey that became Mountain Fresh Foods started the afternoon of September 11th, 2001 in the apartment of it's founder Jay Knight as the TV relentlessly replayed the footage of the day, you could hear the distant sound of the F-18 fighters posted to maintain coverage over downtown Atlanta. At this point, watching videos of people crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot that the idea of a fanny pack with some band-aids and ramen noodles seemed a good idea. A wife, two kids and 15 years later, this had reached the place of a small homestead type farm in the mountains of North Carolina. The kids loved the chickens and the fresh air of life in the mountains on a hobby farm.
The original concept of the company did not arise from a plan to make money as much as an inspiration to encourage families to prepare for a coming storm.
Mountain Fresh Foods originally was planned to be a wholesale freeze drying operation for beef, but at the beginning of COVID the idea of what amounted to a $100 steak meal was determined to not be what people needed. People needed food quickly and in large enough volume to eat weeks. The company grew rapidly during the COVID crisis because mutiple friends joined the operation to expand operations.
The slogan of the eventual company would be set as "We want you prepared" and completely captures the motivation of the founders of Mountain Fresh Foods.
The first product designs for what would come to be known as the "30 Day Meal Foundation Kit" started shipping in February of 2020. The original idea arose when friends and family would call us and ask "What do I need to do?" with the response being "Go buy as much rice and beans as you can find". The 30 Day Meal Foundation Kit contained a combination of black and pinto beans, white rice, chicken bullion and salt that amounted to 2,000 calories a day for 30 days. To date, over 4,000 of some form of this kit have been shipped nationwide and internationally. Our products helped families weather COVID with food security as far as Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. Other products have been added to the company product line including buckets of various staples such as the 35 pound rice bucket and 24 pound pinto and black bean buckets. In the summer of 2022 around 13,000 pounds of rice was shipped to Puerto Rice prior to the hurricane that would hit.
