Cost of the chest freezer: CAD 1,000
Cost to completely fill the freezer with good food: CAD 2,700
Given that, during a pandemic or a winter storm in Canada, a power failure can be a prolonged event...
Cost of a good gas powered generator to keep the freezer viable beyond a day: CAD 1,000.
This article seems to validate the generator purchase.
Not the collapse of civilization.
A lot of people panic buying early on weren't really thinking things through. They were stocking up months of canned food and rice but many weren't stocking up on fuel, they were buying a few gallons of bottle water rather than big containers to fill with water, and I assume many weren't stocking up on ammo--which may be controversial but if we're positing societal collapse...
Does one monitor the freezer temperature, and when it starts warming start the generator, then wait for the freeze compressor stops, and then turn off the generator?
Or does one keep the generator running all the time, so between times of the freezer running the generator is idling?
The second option is certainly more convenient, but seems like it would waste fuel while idling. The first option would last longer--but the generator is supposed to be kept away from the house and it could get annoying to have to keep going out to start and stop it.
The less expensive generators may run at a constant speed, regardless of wattage load, so there may be no concept of “idling”. Thermal mass as jugs of water, or bags of water ice (if available) is a win.
As another commenter says, the freezer isn't the only device that could be powered in an outage.
Also, in Canada, when you run a generator in a power outage, after awhile you have neighbours who appear with long extension cables. Which is fair, because the generator is noisy, and there are periods of excess capacity.
Also some neighbors will appear with gasoline because, during a power outage, you can't buy gas.
The generator is insurance, not a lifeboat.
What makes me periodically think about a generator is a sustained outage in freezing temperatures in winter. Given that more or less the worst that can happen in summer is I have to throw out a bunch of food, I'm not sure the generator makes sense.