BUYER BEWARE! $5,000 Freeze Dryer Nightmare | We Want the TRUTH!!

I don't know what to say, guys. Um, other than I'm sorry I recommended something to you that may or may not have gone out of business and uh it's very unfortunate. I'm going to show you a potentially $2,000 paper weight right here. Buyer beware, all freeze dryers are not created equally. Let's talk. Well, here we are, guys, and I'm disappointed. And I'm going to give you a little bit of a buyer beware. This is Prep for Life. This is the Prep for Life Cube freeze dryer right here. Really cool. I [clears throat] Man, I can't tell you how much I wanted the freeze dryer to work here. You guys are going to hear the cows moving in the background, by the way. They're hungry. So, this is the Prep for Life freeze dryer. I think this is called the Cube. And this is probably an over a $2,000ish purchase here for the farm. Now, I used to work with Prep for Life and actually the president of the company has been to the farm. Um, and it was a company out of Utah. I really liked the company. Uh, I really like the setup of how this freeze dryer worked. Now, I have a Harvest Right freeze dryer and then at the end of the video, we're going to take you in and show you the Harvest Right freeze dryer. I've got a problem with this. It's not cooling like it's supposed to. It's not sealing up like it's supposed to. And it's not freeze drying like it's supposed to. I'm going to open this up and show you guys uh what my problem is. And the secondary problem is I can't get a hold of anybody at the company. This video was prompted by one of my viewers reaching out to me or multiple viewers reaching out to me and telling me they had a problem with their freeze dryer and they can't get Prep for Life to answer a phone call. They can't get them to uh answer an email. they can't get any way of getting in touch with them on Facebook or anything and they're not getting any response. Well, we're going to test that. Let's go in my office real quick and we're going to make some phone calls and see if we can get a hold of them. I don't know what's going on here if they're out of business or what, but I do want you guys to be aware and this is a product that I recommended uh to millions of viewers here and I want to make sure that we all have the right information. So, let's go in the office. We're going to sit down and we're going to make a few phone calls and see if we can get in touch with Prep for Life and see what's going on. So guys, as you can see, I'm scrolling through here and I'm on the Prepforlife website, which is p4lfood.com. And as we scroll through, we can see that they still have their products on the website, but when you go to hover over add to cart, and it just has a no-go sign right there. So, you can't add them to your cart. We scroll down here. We'll find the contact us and we're going to go ahead and call these numbers. So, let's let's do that with you guys live. I don't know if they're out of business. I don't know what's going on. You know, I I I love the freeze dryer. I just don't know. So, let's see here. Hey Siri, dial 1 8007388618. >> Welcome to Verizon Wireless. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number. >> That's the 1-800 number for Prep for Life. And that 1-800 number is on their Facebook page as well as their uh uh website. Now, there's another phone number on here. It's an 801 number and I happen to know that's a Utah number and this company's out of Utah. And again, guys, I've worked with Prep for Life and I haven't heard anything. I've emailed them months ago and haven't heard anything back. I emailed him again today. I don't know if we'll hear anything back, but let's try the 801 number. So, hey Siri, dial >> 8012698730 on speaker. Calling 801269 8730 on speaker. >> Welcome to Verizon Wireless. Call now be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again. >> Clearly something is going on at Prep for Life. I don't know. This was prompted by a viewer of mine that evidently bought a Prep for Life freeze dryer and looked me up, found me on the internet showing these. And man, I wish I had an answer for you guys on this. I don't really know. There is a cube freeze dryers group on Facebook right now and you guys can go in there and join that group. Tell them Stony Ridge Farmer sent you. I'm not affiliated with them at all, but there's a lot of discussion about it and we can read right here. Uh, this person is asking about updating the the software and it says the company has gone belly up and there's no technical support of any kind. So, I don't know. >> So, you see what I see and you also see what my viewer that contacted me this morning saw. He can't get a hold of anybody from Prep for Life. I can't get a hold of anybody from Prep for Life. I've got the president of the company's phone number. I can't get a hold of anybody from Prep for Life. Uh, I did reach out to another guy that used to work for Prep for Life and basically couldn't get any information. I just don't have any information other than when you go on the website and you try to buy one, it gives you that little Ghostbuster symbol that I you can't buy it. Um, I don't know where you get parts for them. I don't know who repairs them. I think maybe an appliance repair person could repair it. Uh, this one seems to be low of uh coolant or freon and I think it just needs a recharge on the Freon. It doesn't seem to be freezing appropriately and or drying appropriately. And here's what happened. These are shiakei mushrooms that I did this earlier this year and I did a full video on it. And you can see they're not freeze dried. They're just mush. So, it should not be like that. Okay. It's just It's just garbage. It It ruined my batch of Oh, they're dumped that on the ground. Birds will get that. It ruined my bats of shiakeis to the point where they're absolutely unconsumable. Um, I am not happy. I'm not happy that I've represented a company and I can't get them to reach back out to me and that I can't uh share that information with you guys. So, buyer beware. And I hate to say this because these people are super nice. They're super man. They're just super good people that run this company, Prep for Life, and I haven't heard anything out of them. So, at this point, I've got to tell you guys, buyer beware. Stay away from Prep for Life, until we hear more about what the heck is going on. If you're having a similar experience and you have a Prep for Life freeze dryer and you've found anything out about it, post it down there in the comments. I want people to know. This is such a cool way of preserving food. And the prep for life was different than the harvest, right? Being that it didn't have an external pump. Everything was all built in. But what I think is going on is that these units either are failing or they're not working properly or sales weren't what they thought they would be and the and the company has either gone out of business or gone bankrupt. I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I'm gonna tell you, buy or beware. If you find one of these on Facebook Marketplace, if you find one of these anywhere, buyer beware because you may not be able to get it serviced. If you've got a good appliance repair guy, you might be just fine. This has a vacuum pump built into it and a cooling system. So, it's basically a freezer that sucks all of the air out of this chamber right here. And so it freezes it in place, sucks all the air out and dehydrates it and freeze dries it in place. Freeze drying is super good for you. It retains most of the nutrient content in your food. When you rehydrate the food, it just rehydrates right back to what it was before you freeze dried it. It's super awesome. This one has uh racks inside of it. So you got a tray in here. You've got a rack so you can double up. And I haven't cleaned it since the shiakeis because I just don't know what the heck is going on. So I could put a layer underneath and a layer right here. Can double up and it works fantastic. It'll also help you seal off canning jars. So you can put them in those myar bags like I just showed you or you can put it in canning jars. Now let me show you and there'll be a link and a discount for you guys. Uh, I did reach out to Harvest Right freeze dryers and we're going to get you hooked up with a with a discount code and everything from Harvest Right. Again, this is Prep for Life. You can't get them on the website right now. I can't get a hold of anybody to service the machine. I can't get a hold of anybody to to help me with any warranty issues. I can't get a hold of anybody. And I think a lot of other people are having similar issues. I don't know if the company's out of business. I haven't heard anything. Maybe after this video I'll hear something about it. It's all unfortunate. And again, the people that ran Prep for Life or that maybe still run Prep for Life were salt of the earth. Just great people. They were right here with me here on my farm. They're that good of people. They're that I trust them to be in my home. But I don't know what's going on here. And I've reached out several times to no avail. And I know some of my viewers have done the same thing. So, it's it's it's basically a paper weight at the moment. So, we're going to go in here and I'm going to show you a freeze dryer that does work. By the way, this is the outdoor kitchen. If you guys are new to the channel, be sure you're subscribed. Love to have you back. Uh in here in my shop is the other freeze dryer that I have. And this is the Harvest Right brand freeze dryer. Okay. Harvest Right. Trustworthy company. Still rocking it out. Still in business. still doing great. Just a little bit of a different design. And this has an external pump on it. So, you just basically do the same thing. Seal it. Um, super happy with the Harvest, right? It has done nothing wrong. It's been working absolutely perfect without a charm. In fact, I had to take out some of the mushrooms that I was running through the Prep for Life and put them in the Harvest Right freeze dryer. So, it's unfortunate. I just want buyer to beware, guys. Do not I'm just gonna say don't buy them. Don't go online and buy a used one off of eBay. Don't go online and buy a used one off of Facebook Marketplace until we figure out what the heck is going on with Harvest Right freeze dryers or excuse me with Prep for Life freeze dryers. Don't buy them. Don't fool with it unless well buyer beware because there's no more warranty that I can see. Nobody's getting back to me. I know the owner of the company and I'm not hearing anything. I don't know. I don't know if somebody I just don't know. I don't know if if they've gone belly up or if somebody in the company has gotten sick. I don't know what's going on. But buyer beware. You can't right now currently get these fixed via contacting Prep for Life. And you just heard what happens when I make the phone call to the company. I don't know what to say, guys. Um other than I'm sorry I recommended something to you that may or may not have gone out of business and uh it's very unfortunate. Hopefully all you folks that have bought a Prep for Life freeze dryer are having good luck with them and uh and you're not having any issues. if I find any other source. And if you guys know a source for parts, please post it down there in the comments section. Uh, buyer beware. I don't like making this kind of video, but I don't want you guys to suffer um by buying something that simply either doesn't work or you can't get it w fixed or worked on. All right, thank you guys so much. Hit that like button. I got to go feed them cows. We'll see you next time on the Stony Ridge Farm channel. And we'll be doing some more freeze drying with the Harvest Right freeze dryer later this year. See you NEXT TIME. [screaming] Y'all come back now. You here?