Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> Looking past the amazement of people lining up for full carts of toilet paper in the month of March. The real underlining concern for most Americans was for safety for their loved ones yes, but also an all too real lack of practical preparedness.<br> <br> Join us today as Joe Rieck of Emergency Essentials (BePrepared.com) shares what life has been like since sales started to climb in the month of February. From challenges the company has faced to the customer letters of gratitude Joe's received that help him and the staff know they are making a difference in tough times.<br> <br> Our hopes align with Joe's that in light of these challenges, people will view preparedness as a practical and safe thing to do in the future.<br> <br> Find out more at their website and be sure to pickup a QSS certified, 1-Month Food Supply - <a href="https://beprepared.com/">https://beprepared.com/</a><br> <br> Full Transcript<br> Brian: Joe Rieck is the VP of sales for Emergency Essentials. It can be found online at BePrepared.com.<br> <br> He's been involved with emergency preparedness for over 14 years, and he has helped thousands of people to become better prepared. Joe Rieck, welcome to the Off The Grid Biz Podcast.<br> <br> Joe: Hey, thanks Brian for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here with you.<br> <br> Brian: So why don't you let everyone know a little bit about what it is that you do?<br> <br> Joe: Okay, so emergency essentials, we specialize in long-term emergency food, and this usually consists of freeze dried items as well as dehydrated items. We have a wide selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, ready made meals, MRE's, we have a wide selection of emergency gear, 72 hour backpacks, water filtration systems, anything you can kind of think that you might need an event of an emergency or disaster. We try to have you covered.<br> <br> Brian: Great.<br> <br> How did you personally end up here? What's your life story up to this point?<br> <br> Joe: Well, you know, about 10 to 11 years ago, I was involved with a company that we started a long-term food storage company that grew. And we ended up selling that off a couple years ago.<br> <br> Typically once companies get in the hands of private equity groups, the mission kind of changes a little bit.<br> <br> I was lucky enough to be found with a group called Emergency Essentials. And I've been here for over two years. It's a great little company, we're a privately held, there's no private equity group that is responsible for to.<br> <br> We have one owner and that's the only person that we listen to, and that we kind of take advice from. And so it's very, very simple.<br> <br> We try to just be there for our customers the best that we can. So I actually love what we do here at Emergency Essentials and it's been a lot of fun over the past couple of years.<br> <br> Brian: Oh, fabulous.<br> <br> So what where do you find new customers at?<br> <br> Joe: Well, let me just tell you right now they're coming out of the woodworks with this whole COVID-19 pandemic that we're going through. It's like, a flip was switched and everybody in the world kind of became well aware of the need to have a backup plan.<br> <br> As you can imagine, with this COVID crisis that's going on just our industry, our business, I mean, we've been hit tremendously hard, you know, in a positive way, because the amount of interest that we have in our products. And so it means it's caused a little bit of hiccups from a business perspective as far as having the capacity to produce and to make the food and to get it packaged and prepared and shipped out, which caused some trouble that way as far as having a backorder list.<br> <br> But as far as the knowledge and the need to educate people, the media has done a great job of showing what happens in the event of a disaster w...
