FOOD SERVICES

Prices
Options: PRO pack or Camp pack?
Menu Planning Options
Ice
Menu Download Center (Print forms and menus from here!)

At PRO we know great food is a key ingredient of a satisfying river trip. We also know your time is precious. Given the option, you'd probably choose to hike a side canyon rather than hang back and make dinner. So our meals are designed to be healthy, delicious, and easy to prepare. Our ingredients are top notch; either you'll recognize the brand, or we'll provide you with healthy, pure, delicious foods far better than the leading brand. If you've ever packed food for an expedition, you'll love the ease of letting us do it for you.

The PRO Menu Planning Options

offer several delicious Sample Menus that you can adopt to save time and money. If you use one of our stock menus without changes, you qualify for the Supersaver Menu Planning Service for $10/day of your trip. We will work with you to be sure that you have supplies to match the needs of your group. Seven 2008 Sample Menus are linked at the bottom of this page for you to review. Food availability and cost changes constantly, and we change our offerings annually.

We encourage you to adopt one of our Sample Menus so that you qualify for the straightforward Supersaver Menu Planning Service. Our Sample Menus are tested repeatedly on the river and incorporate everything we know about providing excellent Grand Canyon fare. And we've been doing it for a while. If you prefer to choose exactly what meals to have and when, our Build Your Own menu system offers flexibility in meal planning. You can choose each side dish, appetizer and dessert independently from the entree.  You can even create your own recipes, by putting together our options.  Every meal and dish is available at any time; you can have omelets for dinner and PB&J for breakfast---just say so!

The Build Your Own Menu Planning Service allows you to combine our meals and ingredients to create a custom menu for your trip (for $20/day of trip). Make your selections from the wide variety of breakfasts, lunches, main courses, side dishes, appetizers, desserts and snacks listed in our Menu. To assist you in your decision making, main courses are rated as to ease of preparation, and meals and side dishes are grouped according to their level of perishability. Once you've chosen your meals, we plug them into the computer and provide you with a complete shopping list of food stuffs and supplies. You get two opportunities to revise your menu and shoplist. Before your launch you'll receive two printouts of your selections with recipes and helpful hints, organized in notebooks. You can buy and pack the food the way you like, or you can hire us to do it for you.

With the PRO Food Buy & Pack we purchase the food, reduce packaging and carefully pack the food for you. We supply a put-in breakfast and take-out lunch, in addition to the meals that appear on the menu. The food cost for your trip is based on your actual menu and current food costs, and can include kitchen and toilet sundries. We offer two methods for packing food, which are detailed below. Whether we pack into your coolers and boxes, ours, or a combination, we work with you to be sure the overall volume of the food fits sensibly into your rafts.

FOOD PACK PRICES

WHICH FOOD BUY & PACK
BEST SUITS YOUR NEEDS?

The PRO Pack:

If you are tight for space on your boats, this pack is for you. Similar items are packed together, much like your pantry. Condiments are in one box, breakfast supplies in another. Coolers are split into meat, dairy, and produce. Cans and fruit are in crates, durable vegetables in dry bags.

Pros:

• The PRO Pack makes the most efficient use of limited storage space.
• Like items are packed together; for example - all the breakfast items are packed together, all the pasta is together, all the cookies are together.
• Your boxes empty evenly throughout your fleet.
• You're able to utilize fresh foods as they ripen, and respond to changes in the weather or your schedule.
• The PRO pack is the least expensive option.

Cons:

• Someone will need to pull specific supplies for each meal.
• It takes more time initially for group members to identify whose raft has what, so shopping is more time consuming.
• You have to consolidate foods to make room for garbage.

The COMBO Pack:

If you have a huge amount of space on your boats, this pack is for you. Dry & canned goods are packed in order by camp, and coolers are split into Meat, Dairy and Produce coolers.

Pros:

• Canned and dry goods are quickly located in the Camp Box.
• Separate coolers for different types of food allows different temperatures in each cooler, and keeping the tomatoes all together makes the cooler pack more efficient.

Cons:

• The food occupies more dry box space than the PRO Pack and allows less ease of meal re-scheduling.
• There is no obvious place to store leftovers and unused supplies from the camp box if you convert that day's box to a garbage container. 
• It requires more time for our Food Packer to separate food stuffs into meals and pack them as efficiently as possible, and so, costs more.

PRO ICE

PRO offers solid, long-lasting ice, available ONLY with a PRO food pack from March until October. We freeze super-cold ice directly into our coolers, and into yours when you send them to us early enough (two weeks freeze-time is needed). Solid ice, and a pre-frozen cooler, lasts far longer than block ice which contains air pockets, cracks and impurities. The process of making PRO Ice takes time, as we freeze three layers to give us a flat food-packing surface. For a Grand Canyon trip we fill the cooler about 2/3 full, and plastic grates on top of the ice keep your food from sitting in melt-water.

ICE PRICES

MENU DOWNLOAD CENTER

Most of these files are in pdf form, so you need Adobe Reader to view them. If you don't have this program on your computer, click here to download the (free) latest version. If you have not decided whether you want the Build Your Own or Supersaver Menu Plan, you can read about those above, on this page.

First, use the Food Preferences survey to assess the eating habits of your group and choose a menu. Please don't send this one to us, use it to figure out what kinds of eaters are in your group! If you already know what kinds of food your group prefers, you can skip this step.

2008 Sample Menus:
PRO Classic
PRO Classic II
Quick & Easy
Vegetarian
Winter Hearty
Summer Light
Meat/Veggie Combo
Rafting Gourmet
John Wesley Powell Memorial Menu

SAMPLE MENU NOTES: The Sample Menus posted here are 18-25 days in length - if your trip is shorter, the menu will be adjusted to your trip length.

If you'd like to base your Build Your Own Menu on a Sample Menu, please contact us and we can e-mail modifiable versions of any sample menu to you. Then you can just modify the Sample, instead of starting from scratch.

Please turn in your initial menu selections and worksheets at least sixty days prior to your launch.

Email us - info@proriver.com

© 2008 PRO Inc.