So the big holiday crush is behind us now. I was traveling for the holidays, unfortunately, but managed to not get stuck in an airport so…there’s a triumph. However, I did have some interesting experiences after all….I got to meet, and pick the brain of, the head honcho of a company that makes MRE’s. Funny who you meet in the course of your travels.
I had a lengthy and technical conversation about MRE’s, packaging, development, cost accounting, whats new on the horizon, who are the big contracts with, calorie requirements from various customers, who are the international customers, etc. All in all, a very informative and illuminating conversation.
I have a goodly stash of MRE’s simply because theyre the epitome of grab-n-go food. They are bulky and they are heavy. But…they are literally everything you need in one place. I don’t view them as a long-term solution but rather as a short-term solution to a particular episode. For example, if I was simply staying home through a blizzard or the aftermath of a hurricane….no need for them, there’s plenty of ways to create better, tasteir meals from my food stocks. But for a ‘get everything in the truck, we have to leave nownownnow!’ sort of situation, they’re pretty much ideal.
Same story on the freeze drieds….they’re not a three-meals-a-day-for-months type of food but rather a specialized item for particular situations. Most notably stowing them in environments where space is at a premium, and long shelf life is paramount. For example, a big sealed drum of them in the closet at your bug-out cabin.
But MRE’s have always had that interesting history of military and .gov development and use. Sure, Mountain House has an R&D department, but it’s probably constrained by the relatively limited resources of a private company. Uncle Sam, however, has no such limitations on how much cash he can swing around if he really wants something. And then he orders five million at a time to get the quantities-of-scale advantage.
Anyway, it was definitely a highlight of this seasons travel experience to meet and talk to someone who is ‘in the know’ on a topic that I’ve found interesting for so many years.
ETA: This was a conversation that was casual and ‘off the record’. I don’t want to say anything that would come back to get this guy in trouble for divulging company secrets or anything like that. So, I won’t say which company, and I won’t say the exact title. What can I say? I was told shelf life of current MRE’s is “five years”. Biggest bottlenecks? Labor and packaging supplies. Biggest customer? .mil and various FEMA-types. International orders? Very few since nations want the stuff made domestically and you cant just build a food-safe facility for one contract.
Could you share that conversation? I for one would be really interested in his responses to your questions.
you teased with MRE article So what are the coming trends and who else is buying them? Enjoy your site. Got it from SurvivalBlog.
“I got to meet, and pick the brain of, the head honcho of a company that makes MRE’s. Funny who you meet in the course of your travels.”
Were you sworn to secrecy? What company? What information for us to make educated decisions? Asking for a friend.
Why would you ask CZ to reveal the name of the person who shared information in confidence?
Obviously, you don’t believe in the saying, “My word is my bond.”
Please say that you asked what the real shelf life are on those things. The old brown packaged ones were a easy 10 years, newest ones are rumor to be only 5 years at optimum conditions. I’ve eaten some 8yr old tan packaged ones and flavor and texture were sub par with how remember them tasting.
When these first came out I was working for the DMA. Those early ones definitely earned the nickname of Meals Rarely Edible. And Meals Rejected by Ethiopia. The selections weren’t anything like today. I actually like the menus and the quality is much better. The hot dog MRE didn’t resemble anything I ever got at the ball park. The hamburgers when opened looked like two small Brillo pads. The ham steaks were fairly tasty but we never did figure out why they came with a plain white rice side dish. I did keep a case in my truck for bad weather. Along with a couple of 12 paks of water and the usual winter stuff. Wool blankets. Emergency candles not for light but heat. Folding shovel. The MREs today are actually very good. The beef stew is my favorite. The pound cake desert paks are a bit dry but good. I used to keep these around but the price of a case of 12 is beyond my pocket book at the current time.
But they have come along way as far as taste and the menu selection available.
I would never turn one or a case down if I was caught short.
i buy the separate components that i like and build my own mre meals. much cheaper that way too.
I used to get those from Emergency Essentials. They don’t sell them any more. Have you any sources where one might get them. The oatmeal cookies used to be great. Thank you in advance for any tip you can provide.
yeah, ee was my source too but i find some now on allmre.com and amazon has the cheese and peanut butter packets. at allmre you have to visit every so often to find stuff in stock. i see a lot of mre type meat on the shelf at wallyworld and even food lion. not real cheap, but less than a 15 dollar mre.
Try theepicenter.com
They have plenty of MRE components for sale on a regular basis. Prices even drop when the items get 1 or 2 years past manufacture date.
You’ve probably already figured out that you need to do an exhaustive info-dump of everything you learned, possibly as a short series of posts, after meticulously sanitizing out the who (to protect your source), and passing along only the why and the what.
In your ample spare time.
Between what you knew about them already, and the latest information, and about Mountain House, and after a dig-around dive into the debacle that was the Wise Company fraud, iyou could put out a couple of hundred pages as “The Survival Food Bible” as Commander Zero, and enter the pantheon of bona fide survival expert authors. And get the checks and the glory, without the intrusive aspects of your fifteen minutes of fame.
Not to mention doing a public service.
Why should lackwit generalist spec authors who don’t know backpacking food from MREs, or their own back ends from a hole in the ground, always horn in on our turf with half-assed and half-accurate clickbait books?
Take the plunge, man. You’ve got this in you, if you want to go there.
Just throwing it out there.
And if you had a historical bent, you could back-trail this to Napoleon’s original contest for someone to come up with what became canned rations, follow it through K-rations and C-rations, and come up with a notable historical compendium, that doesn’t presently exist, AFAIK.
About twenty years ago I met one of the guys who was on the MRE development team back in the ’70s. He brought in all the research, reports, and testing info he had saved. I got to see pictures and descriptions of the prototype MRE’s and their ideas about what they should have. Apparently the plan was for two cigarettes in each MRE at some point. Times change.
The mre’s I have from my grandpa from when he was in the reserves have a 4 pack of marlboro reds in side and they were surprisingly fresh…
Good information to know. Some time back, there was a local manufacturer of MREs in our small city (McAllen). The Wornick Company was purchased and then moved out of state some where. I’m not sure if the company still exists. They used to sell their products at local gun shows.
When I was a kid in Grade School, well into the 1960’s one could find Cases of C-Rations (canned MRE’s) from WWII and Korea at the old, authentic “Surplus” stores. They were mostly the same as commercial Soups, Stews, Veggies, Spam, Spaghetti-O’s, just packed in odd-sized and Heavier Cans than needed an Opener- like the little ‘P-38’ taped to the lid of one can. Few were Inedible- but the Worst was Ham and Eggs, or “Screaming Yellow Death”. It seemed to be Scrap Pork (not even Spam) mixed with runny, undercooked Eggs. Heating them up in a G.I. Mess Pan over a small Fire was the way to Go.
The Desert Cakes in smaller Cans were always very good. there was an Accessory Pack with Matches, Cigs, T.P. and Hard Candy and Gum- all regular commercial Brands. They were common items for Scouts and “Backyard Camping” that also went with Canvas Shelter-Half ‘Tents’.
Some of those C rations were pretty darned good. The spaghetti and meatballs with the cheese for the crackers mixed in. Oh yeah. Pork and beans in tomato sauce. The hospital rations were great. Lemon poppy pound cake. Chocolate chip pound cake. Chocolate chip cookies. All good and cheap. I used to deal with a company called P&S Sales out of Chicago. Still have many of the items I got from them. They did a lot of contract overrun stuff.
Au contraire.
Actually served far enough back to get issued C-rats, and Ham & Eggs was fought for as being one of the better ones, and the only one that tasted remotely like anything for breakfast.
The universally despised one was Ham & Lima Beans, universally referred to as “Ham & M*****f*****s”.
We distributed them by flipping the carton upside down before opening it (the label was stamped on the top, not the bottoms), and you took random luck, but if you unfortunately selected the Ham& MFers, no one would trade with you for anything. It was the Ace Of Spades, and you were going to eat it yourself, or do without.
Long ago I was out deer hunting and my two boys about 10-11 years old asked me ‘…hey Dad, what is this?…’ It was a MRE that I would carry around in my day pack in case I was stranded. I told them it was long storage food and they asked if they could try it. Sure, go ahead. Five minutes later they were gagging and literally scraping the residue off their tongues! I’m not sure if they even heated it but I’ve had a few cases around for emergencies but never actually had to eat one. IIRC the military gave them to all the POW’s during Desert Storm and they wouldn’t eat them either, just used the boxes as furniture. I’m sure there are some Russians in the field right now that would eat them like they were prime rib.
served almost thirty years, issued c-rats in basic, that’s how long ago. mre’s are great, if you have been in the field a few days, cold wet and hungry because the chow truck driver can’t find the link up site three days in a row. i try to eat them when we lose power once in a while and i ask myself how i ever liked them. think its something about the woods that make them taste better.
Some time ago, BCE at https://theoutlawintrepidreporter.blogspot.com/ had been obtaining and reviewing (actually Eating them) current MRE’s from various Armies, and he thought the Russki stuff wasn’t to bad… I don’t recall all the others he tried, but given his background as a Grunt who probably ate a Pallet-full of MRE’s a Year, I would trust his judgement. I keep some Stale MRE’s around for Emergency Rats, and now and then have tried one out of boredom; none were really “Bad/Inedible” but the Hungrier you are, the better they Taste. I think the newest ones I have are from 2011.