{"id":2106,"date":"2025-12-31T02:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daily-bullet.com\/?p=2106"},"modified":"2026-02-12T12:26:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T12:26:28","slug":"its-all-in-the-packaging-the-engineering-behind-mre-freshness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daily-bullet.com\/?p=2106","title":{"rendered":"It’s All in the Packaging: The Engineering Behind MRE Freshness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Hungry individuals don\u2019t put much thought into the packaging of their food. When people grab a snack, they generally rip into it and toss it aside to get to the good stuff.<\/p>\n

But at the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center\u2019s Combat Feeding Division in Natick, Massachusetts, about a half-dozen engineers spend their days focused on nothing but packaging. With military rations, including meals, ready-to-eat and supplemental bars, packaging is a crucial part of preserving the food\u2019s freshness and extending shelf-life stability, so troops stay fueled up during important missions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While the rations themselves go through a lot of trial and error, so, too, does the packaging.<\/p>\n

Cutting Waste, But Keeping Quality<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the unfamiliar, MREs come in one large plastic bundle with several smaller packages inside consisting of an entree and supplemental snacks and drinks. These rations are packaged in three or four layers of materials, depending on the product, to protect food from the elements and preserve freshness until opened.<\/p>\n

But Natick\u2019s experts are always looking to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 10, 15, maybe even 20 components in an MRE, and each one of those has their own specific package,\u201d said Danielle Froio-Blumsack, a longtime materials engineer on the division\u2019s Food Protection and Individual Packaging Team. \u201cThat\u2019s a large amount of packaging waste to dispose of, and it\u2019s an issue for the Army. It\u2019s also an environmental and health hazard.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The lab\u2019s specialists run most of the entrees through what\u2019s known as the retort process, which hermetically seals them into sterilized packaging via a pressurized chamber. Synonymous with pasteurization and canning, retort extends a product\u2019s shelf life without the need for preservatives.<\/p>\n

Current retort pouches have three layers of blended polymers and a foil layer that keeps water vapor, oxygen and light out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to have low permeation \u2026 because that allows you to extend the shelf life and improve the overall quality for the warfighter,\u201d Froio-Blumsack said.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the foil isn\u2019t recyclable, so FPIPT personnel created a new polymer blend with similar properties that weighs significantly less and meets shelf-life requirements. It doesn\u2019t meet water vapor transmission rates, however, so experts are determining if they need to rework their requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre our requirements too stringent and are they maybe limiting the materials that we could use?\u201d she said. \u201cThat could open up the door to either cheaper or more sustainable materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the new, nonfoil pouches spent five years in storage and recently passed food safety and quality testing in the division\u2019s microanalytical and sensory evaluation labs, where trained microbiologists and sensory panelists test the rations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty big success,\u201d Froio-Blumsack said.<\/p>\n

However, it takes a long time for new materials to make it to the warfighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready it\u2019s been seven years for this project, and it\u2019s still just on the cusp of being able to go out into the field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Exploring Energy Harvesting<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lab works with academia and industry to create new materials and find commercially available technologies that can be formulated to meet military needs. One project that\u2019s in the early stages collaborates with Purdue University on energy harvesting, which converts ambient energy into usable power. The lab is looking at doing so by putting what are called tribal voltaic nanogenerators on patches that would go on pallets of boxed rations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin each one of these little patches are \u2026 two layers of material that, when they vibrate or shake or move in any way, their vibrational energy can be harnessed and stored as energy,\u201d Froio-Blumsack said.<\/p>\n

The hope is that during the logistics cycle \u2014 when pallets of rations are moved and bounced around through air, ship or truck \u2014 they could harvest enough energy to potentially heat a ration instead of needing the flameless ration heater currently used by troops. In Arctic conditions, the process could prevent rations from freezing, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime the pallet would shake or bounce or move, those materials would rub against each other and generate energy,\u201d she said, adding that where they would store that energy has yet to be worked out.<\/p>\n

The FPIPT has also worked closely with NASA to extend the shelf life of astronaut food in preparation for future missions to Mars.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Testing, Testing \u2026 and More Testing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at the division\u2019s packaging lab, all materials, layers and structures are tested multiple times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea behind this is to really put things through their paces. If we get a new product, where did it fail? What was the material?\u201d explained Wes Long, the CFD\u2019s packaging lab manager. \u201cWe pass this data along \u2026 and then we can come up with a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lab is filled with various vacuum, heat and impulse sealers that suck the air out of the packaging. Analysis equipment inspects the pouches to make sure they\u2019re strong enough. For example, tensile testers measure a material\u2019s ability to tear, and burst testers check a package seal\u2019s ability to withstand internal pressure before it ruptures. The lab also uses a water tank to blow ration packages up like a balloon to test for leaks \u2014 even those as small as a pinhole are marked as a failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt immediately bubbles whenever there\u2019s a failure,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

After each material is tested, the lab\u2019s experts create parameters and send them to their industrial partners for standardization.<\/p>\n

When vendors incorporate new automated technology, the division buys the same equipment to ensure it can replicate potential issues. For example, several of the division\u2019s biggest vendors who previously hand-filled MRE pouches now use a faster automated process. However, the machines can sometimes thin out the material at the corners of the pouches and along the seals. Items can also get stuck in the machinery, which is one reason why the ever-popular mini bottles of Tabasco sauce were removed from MREs and replaced with polymer-based packets instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile respecting the needs of the soldiers for morale, we have to give them good quality,\u201d Long said of the unpopular change. \u201cThat [hot sauce bottle] was no longer working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like the food itself, the warfighter also gets to test and approve the packaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we invent something we think is great, we need them to have that final approval, because that\u2019s what matters,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He added that it\u2019s important for the sealed packages to be flexible without fail since they\u2019re piled together and shipped all over the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese rations inside that have food \u2014 those pouches rub against the [bigger] pouch. That pouch is in a box. That box is in a pallet, and they\u2019ll be stacking pallets about four high, so that bottom box with that bottom ration has to absorb all that weight,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

Those ration cases are made of thick, solid fiberboard that\u2019s been engineered for structural strength and compression.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing like what your [online order] comes in,\u201d Long said. \u201cIt\u2019s strong and weather resistant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before being put into pallets, the boxes are dropped and shaken \u2014 what they call rough handling tests \u2014 to simulate real-world conditions to make sure the products get to the warfighter in one piece.<\/p>\n

By Katie Lange, Pentagon News<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis entry was posted
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Wednesday, December 31st, 2025 at 01:00\t\t\t\t\t\tand is filed under Army<\/a>, Field Gourmet<\/a>, Guest Post<\/a>, Sustainment<\/a>.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a> feed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoth comments and pings are currently closed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n