Food Pack and Menus

"Thank you Rachel for all your patience and infinite understanding with our food pack and trip. It rivals that of an angel." - Testimonial from Dave Shu and 15 Canyoneers 03/30/2009

Packing food and ice for any long river trip is a science. Ceiba will provide your trip wholesome, tasty food in plentiful quantities. Our menus can easily accommodate vegetarians, those with special dietary needs or allergies, and occasions such as birthdays. Whether we pack the food into Ceiba’s coolers & boxes or utilize your own, we will organize it to stay as fresh as possible.

Check out our "Whole Shabang" package on the "Complete Packages" page

Menu Options
You have several choices when working with Ceiba and designing your preferred menu. One is the easy and simple route of picking from our Ceiba set menus, or you can work with our food pack guru and put together a customized menu. We always include the necessary staples and condiments to prepare your meals, a full snack box, spice kit, plenty of fresh fruit and tasty veggies, fresh locally roasted coffee, tea, juice and drink mixes. Your menu also includes non-edible sundries such as paper towels, dishwashing supplies, charcoal, hand soap, Ziploc’s, etc.

So your food planning is beginning! It doesn’t have to be a chore! No need to stress! The easiest fix is simply to look at our preplanned menus and chose one. Here’s some commentary from years of river experience, as well as a wealth of knowledge passed down from all the private trips we’ve packed in the past!

You already know that you will probably eat better on your canyon trip than you ever do at home. How often do you actually eat 3 square meals a day at home? Is it likely that at home you will eat leftovers at least twice a week? Welcome to our Grand restaurant where all of our menus have healthy, wholesome ingredients that will keep you well fed, creative and never going hungry!

Every menu comes with a full compliment of staples and sundries. These provide you with all the necessary condiments & spices for preparing meals. Your food pack also includes all the non edibles such as paper towels, Ziplocs, dish & hand soap etc. Please check out the Staples/Snacks/Sundries (PDF)

A Few Thoughts!

Breakfasts – Although lots of huge, hot breakfasts sound exciting, we find most people really don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing breakfast. They’d rather be drinking coffee, looking at the view or getting a head start on rigging their boat for the day! Having a handful of just cold & hot cereal mornings is an easy fix!

Lunches – Variety is nice, but if you want to do a lot of hiking it is convenient to be able to have a pack lunch. Some trips just pull out the lunch stuff at breakfast and have everyone pack their own lunch. The beauty of a pack lunch is that you can eat whenever you want! This saves time of not having to do the entire lunch set up midday. Some of our lunches require a little prep the morning of, for example: hummus & tabouli, pasta salad, hardboiled eggs. A few need a bowl at lunch, like tuna, chicken or salmon salad,
veggie and caesar wraps. The 20 mil lunch box has all the condiments you need and usually all the lunch items are in one cooler for ease of finding things. It’s always good to look at the lunch menu during breakfast to make sure everything you need will be accessible when you stop for lunch, such as apples, oranges, lemons, limes, special ingredients for that lunch. I challenge you to eat all your fruit! Slicing up apples & oranges with lunch will encourage eating, or take a whole piece for a hike!

Snack Box – Heaven forbid you forget that the snack box exists! These are for anytime, anyplace! Add some things from the snacks box to spice up your pack lunch or grab a bite if you need a little sugar rush before running Hance Rapid! (In the summer time the chocolates are usually hiding in the lunch cooler!) Your goal is to eat it all! Whoever ends up with this box on their boat will either be really popular or really full.

Dinners – There are suggestions with each meal on how to prepare the food. But on the other hand, if you are a whiz in the kitchen feel free to be creative. Don’t be shy with those spices. Keep an eye on your produce. If something is ripe and needs to be used, by all means use it. Don’t wait for it to rot so you can throw it away. You won’t starve down the way, I promise!

Use your leftovers! – Toasted bagels or english muffins leftover from breakfast give great variety at lunch or provide a good mid morning snack. If breakfast doesn’t call for bagels but you know you have extras from a previous meal, pull them out!!! If your boat with lunch bread flips and gets soggy think about enforcing the open face sandwich rule, or use tortillas. We rarely see a trip that uses every single tortilla.

Boatman! – You are responsible for knowing what is on your boat! Keep your cooler neat and drained. Check your milk crates with fruit & veggies to make sure they are in good shape. Pull out anything that is going bad so it doesn’t affect everything else.

Cost per person/per day – This cost will vary from $16 - $20 person/day for most set Ceiba menus depending on how many people are on your trip and the number of days.
Please feel free to call us with any questions about any food menus or issues! In addition to this cost is the service fee for planning/shopping/packing your food. Please call for details.

Ceiba's Custom Food Pack Facility

Ceiba Menus
Ceiba offers a variety of set menus to make the food planning process simple and stress-free. Choose from these set menus for good healthy eating!

» Any menu can be shortened or lengthened for your trip.
» Talk to us about supplementing any menu for vegetarians and specific food allergies!

Please use our individual preference sheet to send out to all your participants
• Individual Preference Sheet (Word Format)

Consolidate the group info on this group preferences sheet.
• Group Preferences Sheet (Word Format)

Keep checking back for more menu options as the season progresses.

Customized Menu
With our customized Menu plan we work with you and your group to fine-tune a menu of your desire. You choose from the many options of breakfast, lunch, hors d’oeuvres, dinner and dessert. If you have your own recipe for Grandma’s special “dutch oven delight” we can easily add that in. With our experience of how food lasts we will arrange your menu and send you an overview to approve. From here we can finalize the details and give you a per person/per day cost. Menu options must be submitted 60 days before your launch.

How We Pack Your Food
Dry goods are organized in 20mm boxes by day; each day box contains dry goods for that night’s hors d’oeuvres & dinner, the next day’s breakfast and resupply of lunch items. That day box becomes the camp’s trash receptacle. A staples box is full of all the necessary cooking condiments and a lunch box makes for easy organization of the next days lunch. Overflow items such as bread, chips, cereals and resupplies of other goods are stored in our aluminum side boxes.

Depending on how many coolers we have to work with, we typically divide them by content, for example: meat, dairy, veggies, lunch, etc. We use only high quality, solid block ice, that when coupled with our Galaxy coolers, ensures your trip has the best in ice preservation technology!

Using your own containers & coolers – We can also pack into your own boxes & coolers, but we do need those containers delivered to Ceiba 1 week prior to your launch.

Ceiba's foodpack in our awesome "Canyon Coolers

Ceiba Food Pack Prices:
Ceiba Menus: $600
Includes the menu, complete food & sundries shop, and packing all the boxes and coolers.

Custom Menus: $750
Includes working with you to plan your menu, customizing it to your needs and desires. Then we do all the food purchase, organizing and packing. Your menu choices are due 8 weeks before your launch. We will finalize your menu & shopping list 1 month before your launch.

Your per person, per day food cost will depend on your menu choice, and the actual number of people and number of days. This cost usually ranges from $16/person/day to $20/person/day.

Coolers & boxes are not included in the food pack price.

Just need ice?
We have great quality solid block ice for $2/block. Please let us know at least 2 weeks in advance of your ice needs!

If you use Ceiba’s food pack service, you can dispose of & recycle your trip trash for free. If not, there is a $40 fee for trash disposal & recycling.

Trash & Recycling

If you use Ceiba's food boxes and coolers for your food pack we will dispose of your trash & recycling for free. If you choose to use your own food boxes and still would like us to dispose of your trash & recycling there will be a $40 dollar fee.

"Thanks, it was such a great trip. You guys were great! The food was yummy
and there were many compliments on the food and recipes...the food and snacks were very
high quality and we were very pleased. The shuttle service was also great - they were there
when expected and we were loaded and on the road in no time."
- L. Saavedra 09/2009