Press Release

LOCAL COMPANY SPONSORS FIRST-EVER NONSTOP SOLO CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AMERICAS

SALT LAKE CITY (11 May 2012)

Matt Rutherford, a 30-year-old sailor of 8 years, has just become the first person to solo circumnavigate the Americas without stopping at a single port. His sailboat, the St. Brendan, sailed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on April 18th to cross his original track and complete the journey he began last June; he made landfall a few days later in his hometown of Annapolis, Maryland.

The 27,077-mile trip took him through the Northwest Passage, down the west coast of North and South America, around Cape Horn, and back up to the Eastern Seaboard in just under 310 days. Rutherford did the trip to raise money for Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB), a nonprofit sailing program for people with disabilities. Matt’s story has appeared on Fox News and Al Roker’s Wake Up with Al.

Shelf Reliance® of American Fork, UT, was a major sponsor for Rutherford’s voyage, donating a 1-year supply of freeze dried and dehydrated THRIVE™ foods for him to eat while he was at sea. “I couldn’t have done it without Shelf Reliance,” Rutherford said. “It was crucial to have food that would sustain me in any environment—quality food, with variety.”

While Rutherford did catch fish occasionally to supplement his diet, he said he ate almost exclusively THRIVE foods. "THRIVE contains a great-tasting and healthy panel of ingredients. It's restaurant quality food," he said. Rutherford prepared THRIVE foods even without electricity, which he did not have for much of his voyage: “All I had to do was heat it up and eat it up. The food was very easy to prepare, and that makes life a lot easier whether you’re at sea or on land. Using THRIVE cut my meal prep time in half.”

Shelf Reliance provides delicious long-lasting foods, innovative rotation shelving, and emergency products to help people around the world achieve thriving lives by becoming more self-reliant, prosperous, and charitable.