Very pleased with my purchase .... the bucket container is compact and medium sized so fits easily in my pantry. It is white with a handle and lid is tightly sealed with an opening tab for when the food needs to be accessed (so I haven't opened it to check inside yet). The container is nicely labelled on the outside for contents but does not say the expiry date so I had to write that on (which is 25 yrs from now).

This is a good product. It just all depends on why you want to purchase it. If you want to drive your family of 3 or 4 to a campsite and set up a Winnebago and pretend camp, you're good. If you want to take you and your partner out for some real camping, pass. Here's why:

A. Size of portions: Each packet contains 4 servings and they are 4 large servings. It says you can prepare half the packet, but figuring out what is exactly half is going to require more measuring devices.

B. It takes 71/2 cups of boiling water and 12-15 minutes of low-boiling to prepare these things. Again, anyone doing real camping without an actual stove is going to have a difficult time getting this done. It takes about 5-6 minutes to boil 2 cups of water on my camp stove and it's damned efficient. I'm not even sure it could boil 71/2 cups of water and keep it "low-boiling" for 12-15 minutes. It would likely take it 20 minutes just to get the water to boil. And I don't take pots that can hold 71/2 cups of water on a camping trip. Only people who are pretend camping can do that.

With that said, these things are darned delicious. I bought some to test and they are really tasty. If you're going on a trip and are staying in a hotel or something that offers a kitchenette, these things would save you some money on dining costs. Or, if you just want to save on a week's worth of groceries for dinner, these would do fine. But don't buy these to take camping or particularly as some sort of survival kit.

I tasted only the Pasta Primavera packet just to see if this would be palatable and worth storing as emergency food. First I must say it was actually pretty delicious, as far as an emergency ration would go it's really tasty and filling. The problem with these packs is that they require quite a bit more preparation and resources than something like Mountain House offers. Also as other reviewers have mentioned the portion size per packet is too large, each package should be cut in half and made to be 2 packets instead of 1. You really do have to have a pot to boil water over and keep it boiling as it cooks. Compared to something like Mountain House, which you can just boil water and dump in the package, or even just add cold water to and forget about (even though it will take about 3x as long to reconstitute the food as with boiling water). So this product kind of falls flat in comparison, but it does make up for it in price per portion ratio.

Overall I'd say this is a decent product but due to there being a little bit more tools and preparation needed to make this (you need to actually dump it into a pot and continuously stir, vs pouring in water and forgetting about it) I would rate it just behind competitors. The Pasta Primavera was actually good enough for me to scoop up the remaining sauce on my plate and eat it though, so that does count for something. But, even though the price/calorie ratio is really a bargain with this product, I think I will stick to Mountain House for my emergency food supply just because it is so much easier to make. I think this product could greatly benefit from redesigned packaging that would include cutting the portion sizes per packet in half, making it so the packets can stand up on their own when full of water (thus they must also change the cooking directions on the packet to use about half as much water, to remove the need to boil out the excess moisture of the water which makes the pasta saucy instead of soupy), and adding a ziplock top not only so that it can cook in its own bag but also so that you can save whatever portions you might not eat for later.

Fantastic food!
Legacy seems to offer the cheapest and best-tasting food for the dollar.

Take the number of calories in a bucket/box and divide that by 2,000 calories - giving you the number of days you can survive on the food.
2,000 calories will have the average American losing about 1 pound of weight per week for a man and a woman not losing any weight, but you won't be tied up in hunger pain for that week.

Now divide the number of days of food into the cost to buy the food, and you get the cost per day to keep you in a survival mode.
Every time I do this Legacy is #1 and the reviews of taste and menu choices have Legacy #1 too.

Highly recommend Legacy Emergency Food.

My husband and I tried a few of the flavors in the assorted bucket. Both were tasty. We could definitely exist on these at any point. I did not like that these packets have 4 servings each. We are not interested in eating all 4 servings between us just so it does not go to waste when camping. I also did not like that a continuous simmer of the product must be maintained for 15 min of time. It's enough effort to HAVE-TO start a fire in the first place to boil the water required to have a meal. I do not want to have to have a 6-8 cup+ pot to maintain a boil in. We prefer the Mountain House brand since they come in 2-serving pouches and you only have to bring 2 cups water to a boil then pour it into the product pouches and seal for 10 min and the food is ready. Those are much easier for our needs.