LifeTabs, vanilla-wafer-sized disks of concentrated food that take the place of meals: 125,000 jars sold, at $19.95 each.

Survival pack for two, a year's supply of dried fruits, vegetables, margarine, milk, and seeds for planting sprouts: 60,000 packs sold, at $1,695 each.

The coming of the new millennium has been good to Sam Andy Inc., a Texas-based survival food company that traditionally sells its wares to campers and civil defense groups. Y2K pried the market wide open, said John Sauer, the company's chief executive. By the start of 1999, sales had risen by 1,200 percent; the company started running round-the-clock shifts and opened new factories in three states.

After a summertime lull, Sauer said, sales climbed again in the last few months. The procrastinator market, he explains.

In the months leading up to tonight's final countdown, most consumers faced the millennium with a collective yawn. When local Shaw's supermarkets put up signs announcing they were Y2K compliant, customers did not seem impressed, spokesman Bernie Rogan said.

But in recent days - moved, perhaps, by the looming deadline or the crush of media coverage - the public has paid more attention. Stores across the region and the nation have stocked up on emergency goods, anticipating a wave of last-minute customers.

A core of wary souls is way ahead of them. Across the region and the country, the well-prepared few have been taking Y2K more seriously, pouring their fears, and cash, into supplies.

Sauer divides them roughly into two groups. There are the regular stockpilers, who view food storage as a sort of insurance policy, and there are the Y2K-watchers, from paramilitarists to professionals, who are paying close attention to their cupboards as the millennium nears.

Tim Middelkoop, an industrial engineer in Amherst, counts himself in the latter group. He doesn't expect a major crisis, though, in engineer-speak, he says there is a "nonzero chance of Armageddon" after today.

Still, Middelkoop said, he works closely enough with computers to know what could go wrong. That's why he came up with his own Y2K plan, which he posted on his Web site last year.

It started with figuring out where to spend New Year's Eve. It ends with making sure he has "marginal food sufficiency" six weeks after tonight's big event.

Middlekoop downgraded his plan slightly over time deciding, for example, not to buy a Coleman portable stove. But over the months, he has met most of his goals:

Hoard food? Check; a friend found Canadian Army rations at a surplus store.

Buy batteries? Check; in a drugstore a few months ago, he found 24-packs on sale for $4.99.

Acquire "water storage device?" Check. "Those office water coolers? One of them disappeared from the office," he said.

It is best to be safe, agrees Mike Woodard, a Sam Andy distributor in St. George, Utah. He started to think about potential Y2K problems last year, he said, when he scanned the Internet and came across tales of serious preparations.

When he read about a man who had purchased a cave and was planning to subdivide it, Woodard decided he needed a disaster blueprint of his own.

After a year's worth of reassuring news reports, Woodard said he doesn't fear widespread chaos anymore. Still, he expects a recession, which he said will start with Third World countries and breakdowns in the supply chain.

To ready himself, he has stocked up on supplies and made plans to withdraw all his money from the bank.

"I would hope that everybody would at least be prepared to feed their family and kids for at least 90 days," he said.

While planning for three months might be rare, researchers have expected a steady flow of people to head to automated teller machines and supermarkets this week.

A September poll by the Gartner Group, a New York consulting firm, said: 55 percent of Americans planned to withdraw two to six weeks worth of cash, and 67 percent planned to store enough food for a week.

Some have tried to turn that stockpiling impulse into a catalyst for good works. Shaunti Feldhahn, a devout Atlanta churchgoer with a background in risk management, decided last year that preparing seemed wise, but was dismayed at what she viewed as an un-Christian trend toward hoarding.

So she started the Joseph Project 2000, a national organization that urges churches to collect supplies to help the community.

Boston-area businesses and aid groups have made modest preparations of their own, on the chance that disaster strikes. Some "Meals on Wheels" programs plan to give their clients extra food, water, and flashlights.

And several retailers have made sure their shelves are fully stocked, to accommodate last-minute Y2K fears. Many supermarket officials say they have treated the millennium like the best kind of winter storm, the one you know is coming three years in advance.

"This is no different than a northeaster or a blizzard or a hurricane," said Rogan, the spokesman for Shaw's. It is a matter of stocking the shelves with food that "time and time again, our customers seek out when a low-pressure area is approaching," he said.

At Shaw's, that means tapping into long-tested storm-preparation plans and providing a steady supply of bottled water, canned goods, and batteries. And white bread, which seems to sell out during every storm, Rogan said. He figures it serves as a companion piece to peanut butter.

Rhode Island-based CVS said their stores have not stocked their shelves any more than usual, said spokesman Mike DeAngelis; December is always a big month for batteries, he said. The chain said it is confident it will not face a run on prescription drugs, because pharmaceutical companies typically keep 90-day supplies in the pipeline.

DeAngelis said he does not expect much panic, because of the way customers have behaved so far. When NBC aired its "Y2K" disaster movie last month, he said, the CVS customer service office braced for thousands of nervous callers. They didn't get one.

Indeed, most stores and businesses have not seen much interest in stockpiling Y2K survival goods, and have not benefited from a millennium boost, said industry forecaster Kurt Barnard, president of the Barnard Retail Trend Report.

Even hoarders will not bring in new retail revenues, he said. They will be bringing home goods they usually buy, just a few weeks or months in advance.

"If you're buying 20 boxes of corn flakes today, you certainly have enough corn flakes to last you several months," Barnard said. "Unless you're a corn flake freak."

This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 12/31/1999.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.