Any advice on a food dehydrator. I've never tried it before and the prices seem to start at $40 and up. Looking at doing meat, fruit and vegetables for hiking food.

I don't own one, we do use them at the pub I work at for cocktail accesories. The cheap ones seem to do as well as the more expensive ones.

The people I know who have bought them only seem to use a few times and then they are left in the cupboard until they take up too much space and get chucked.

Picked up a cheap one at Aldi 10 years ago, 6 layers I think, use it every year in the autumn to dry fruits and meat and lend out to other friends that hunt.
never had a problem so don't think the price point has too much to say but just checked the reviews and not everyone so lucky it seems

www.productreview.com.au/listings/aldi-food-dehydrator

check out marketplace and gumtree for S/H ones, then if you find it useful can upgrade later. Daughter has used one 3+ years great for dried fruit school lunches, one grandson was actually selling his fruit it was so popular

Thanks for the advice. I'll go with the cheap one first to learn on. Just got back from an overnight hike and the food I took weighed 1.5kg. So I got to do it better if I looking into say a 5 day hike @ 7.5kgs. Got to save some room/weight for the alcohol. Cheers