FSR Newsroom

For people new to food storage, a common question is: why is it called that?

Honestly, if you think about the phrase “food storage” it sounds more like it should represent something like a container that holds food. In fact, many Internet searches for the phrase food storage direct people to Tupperware and other items used to hold and preserve food.

The best explanation is the phrase evolved from the early practice of canning and preserving food. Early Americans would harvest their crops and then “can” their food in Mason jars so they could use it later. This was an ingenious practice in an era of no refrigerators, let alone electricity. They needed a place to keep all of these jars, and the most likely place was in the cellar or in the shed.

Over time, these terms morphed into “storage shed” and “storage cellar” since that was where the food was “stored.” This further evolved into “food storage” and came to mean both a place where food was stored as well as the actual definition of the food.

Because of the potential for confusion, many freeze-dried and dehydrated food companies use the terms “emergency food storage” or “preparedness food” as substitutes. However, it’s still very common to hear the term food storage when looking for products from foodinsurance.com, Emergency Essentials, The Ready Store, or other companies.

Let us know if you use any other words to describe “food storage.”