How REO food packs work

The basics

Canyon REO's meal service replaces months of menu planning, portion math, shopping, and packing with four steps:

Every food pack includes a stocked Spice Box and Staples Box — oils, seasonings, and pantry ingredients — so your crew can add their own flair to any recipe. Bread and produce come in fresh the day before your rig day, meat comes from a local butcher, and everything rides on REO's own block ice.

A day at camp — and why dinner comes first

Your meal plan is organized by camp, not by calendar day, because that is how the food is packed and how you will live on the river. A camp begins when you tie up for the night. Tap through a day:

What's included, every day

Boil-in-a-Bag dinners

A local caterer prepares these fresh, vacuum-seals them, and we freeze and pack them. They need nothing but boiling water and about 45 minutes, and they are the easiest cleanup on the river, and they keep for the whole trip, so they can go at any camp. Two dinners are included with most menus for tired nights; each one beyond two adds $5.50 per person. A boil-in-a-bag appetizer adds $5.50 per person and a boil-in-a-bag breakfast $4 per person. If your group wants the full experience, the Boil in a Bag base menu makes every dinner one.

The base menus

Every base menu builds a complete trip plan — every camp, every meal — scaled to your days and people. Pick one and make it yours; every dish can be swapped afterward.

New menus join the lineup as our kitchen finishes testing them. Running more days than a menu was designed for? The planner extends it automatically with well-liked, shelf-stable meals.

Dietary needs — same dish, adapted

Tell the planner how many people in your group are vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, or shellfish-free. For each affected meal, those eaters get the same dish, adapted wherever possible — gluten-free bread on the same sandwich lunch, vegetarian sausage in the same breakfast — rather than a different meal off in the corner. Where a dish truly cannot adapt, the planner substitutes the closest matching dish and tells you exactly what changed and why.

Groups that eat one way throughout can start from a dedicated menu instead — the Vegetarian menu is built from our real trip menus, vegetarian from the first recipe, and more dedicated dietary menus join the lineup as they are approved.

Severe or complicated allergies

For serious allergies, our Food Manager will talk directly with the affected person so they can name the specific foods and brands they can safely eat. Use the notes field on your plan, or reach the food room directly — contacts are at the bottom of this page. Sometimes the simplest answer is for that person to ship their own food to us and we fold it into the pack.

Make it yours

• Swap any dish. Tap any cell in the planner to see every option for that meal, with each dish's recipe one tap away. Swapping is free. A few dishes carry a per-person upcharge past an allowance, such as a fourth steak dinner or a sixth deli lunch, and the planner asks before adding one.
• Rearrange your treats. One dessert or appetizer is included per camp, in any combination. Extras are $20 each, and the planner asks before adding one.
• Build your own from scratch. The Build Your Own menu starts from a blank grid and lets you pick every single dish.
• Perishability is handled for you. Every fresh dish carries a freshness window, and the planner will not let a fresh-fish dinner land at Camp 15. Fresh food runs early in your trip, shelf-stable food runs late — automatically.

Add-ons

All of these can be added to any plan, right from the planner's add-ons panel. Planning a birthday, anniversary, or celebration on the river? Tell us — we will help make it special.

One heads-up on organic produce: it tends to spoil faster than conventional, so we will talk through which categories make sense for your trip length.

On the river — finding things and keeping food safe

Where things live

• Recipes ride in the Staples Box (a full duplicate set), and each camp's ammo can carries that camp's recipes.
• Dry goods are in ammo cans labeled by camp number. Bread lives in the aluminum boxes marked Bread.
• Eggs have their own cans — keep them out of the sun, and use the lidded drop bags to keep eggs and produce shaded.
• Coolers are organized by camp span (Camps 1–4, 5–9, and so on), with every item labeled by camp. Fresh milk runs through about Camp 8, boxed milk after; fresh lunch fruit runs early and canned fruit takes over around Camp 9.
• Drink mixes — powdered drink mix and Gatorade ride with the dry goods for the whole trip.

Food safety

• Follow the camp labels — the menu is already sequenced fresh-early, shelf-stable-late.
• Never put anything warm in the coolers, including beer and sodas.
• Plenty of items — cereal, cookies, syrup, jelly — carry over between camps, so save what you don't finish.

Want to see food packs and protocols in action? Watch our orientation videos at youtube.com/canyonreo.

Planning steps and deadlines

1. Poll your group for preferences and dietary needs — the planner's per-person diet controls are built for exactly this list.
2. Build your plan in the meal planner and submit it about 60 days before launch. We review it, and it becomes your menu of record.
3. Final meal and headcount changes are due as soon as you know them, and no later than 30 days before put-in.

Changes after your menu is printed or packing has started carry an adjustment fee, and special requests — organic, cage-free eggs, grass-fed beef — can be accommodated at additional cost.