[RayD]

Bacon and 151 Rum.

[mehitabel]

People coming down from a hike are hungry and need caffeine for the drive home. We always look for a coffee milkshake. On our way to hiking we would conceivably buy larabars or apples, oranges, bread and cheese.

[Chico]

[Chico]

Wouldn't this be more something for the trail runners? What do you folks pack along?

[Bedivere]

[Bedivere]

[Cyclopath]

[robertjoy]

Many specialty items such as jerky, freeze dried food, GOO, are already available. They are not palatable. But there is ONE item that is not available which would be easy to sell and at a high markup: Fresh/Irradiated chicken breasts, vacuum packed and requiring NO REFRIGERATION. (About 30 years ago these were being sold in my local supermarket as a test item. They were fine, but were discontinued after the test marketing. ) "America's astronauts have been eating irradiated (fresh) foods from the beginning of the space program. Irradiated food was eaten by the Apollo astronauts on the moon and on the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz space flight. American astronauts have continued to consume irradiated beef, pork, smoked turkey and corned beef aboard the space shuttle flights."

[Voxxjin]

When you say supplement, I normally think of all of those little pills you can buy that contain ginseng and fish oil and such. Not sure if that is what you are talking about or if you really just mean food people would take for hiking. If it were food, check the food forum here to get ideas of what people like to do. Those freeze-dried items like Mountain House or Packit Gourmet is something I usually take along. Usually they taste ok but it is pretty convenient that all I have to do it heat up water to eat it. So you might also want to sell some of the small fuel canisters. Other than those, I like to have a Payday and tangerines/tangelos. packets of hot chocolate are good too. As people have mentioned, different kinds of power bars or granola bars. Basically think of things that are not bulky or messy or take a lot of food preparation. And things that do not require refrigeration. And if you are really good at marketing you can try to market my idea of dehydrated water

[Ski]

[Nisquaww]

I usually just spark up a fatty of that gypsy cabbage.

[pikahika]

I don't have anything to add about food products, and I think that several of the posters here have already provided some excellent commentary! Regarding what we usually call "supplements". . . I think there are a few that you could reasonably market to a specifically-hiker-minded crowd: the joint-oriented ones like glucosamine/chondroiton and glucosamine/collagen. Some people swear that taking these pills daily helps keep their joints--especially knees--functioning with less pain. Also, you might consider a basic protein powder or perhaps a protein/carbohydrate combo powder that could be added to a water bottle. I don't like taking smelly, potentially messy or sticky powders in my own pack, but I know some people who like the stuff enough that they deal with it.

[Daryl]

goldfish crackers.

[Ski]

had to call my buddy to get the shrimp recipe.... stir-fry whole (peeled, deveined, tail-off) shrimp in wok with "Lee Kum Kee" garlic chili sauce. package in vacuum-sealed bag - similar to "seal-a-meal", but will withstand boiling water. freeze. seperately, package cooked rice in a similar fashion. freeze. on day one of multi-day trip, drop both bags into pot of boiling water for a few minutes. done! I think my mom has one of those machines. I'm going to have to try that one myself.

[Bedivere]

C'mon Ski, don't play dumb. You know why people use pre-packaged freeze dried meals - for the reasons I put forth and possibly a couple others. They're lightweight and convenient. Simple as that. Not nearly as tasty as that shrimp dish, but definitely a lot lighter.