# Rations:  Better Seal, Longer Shelf Life

/ Published April 20, 2016
Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 
Research and development projects chartered by the Defense Logistics Agency are improving the shelf life of combat rations and ensuring the availability of packaging for condiments like hot sauce and mustard. 

The goal of both projects is to harness new and improved technologies to provide better products and services to warfighters, said Gloria Edwards, who manages DLA Logistics Operations’ research and development for items such as combat rations, field feeding equipment, garrison feeding, and bread and dairy products.

“There’s always been an effort to improve combat rations, and that work is now spreading to other parts of the subsistence supply chain. Improving processes and fixing problems is our role as much as it is a role of the individual services,” she said.

 Recent accomplishments resulting from research and development include a 35-percent reduction in volume and weight of the primary packaging for meals, ready to eat. The effort has helped lower the cost of shipping for the more than 30 million MREs ordered annually. 

Now, researchers are focusing on the storage of unitized group rations. UGRs are heat-and-serve meals that can feed up to 50 troops in a field environment. Customers can chose from seven breakfast menus and 14 lunch and dinner menus. Individual items for each menu are stored separately by DLA Distribution in San Joaquin, California, where they’re picked off shelves and packaged in an assembly area just before delivery.

URGs can be stored for three years at 80 degrees Fahrenheit or six months at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but dry heat and a lack of air conditioning at the San Joaquin depot shortened the shelf life. Officials also had no way of monitoring the temperature of food items located on high-rise storage racks. 

“It was discovered that, at the highest level, temperatures were reaching 90 degrees and above in the summertime,” Edwards said. 

Depot officials attempted to lower the temperature by installing 12 evaporative coolers, replacing roof vents with skylights for better ventilation, upgrading insulation and even turning off light fixtures. But without a monitoring capability, there was no way to track conditions. 

“Knowing what temperature the food is at all times is critical. This stuff costs money, and if it’s improperly stored, it has to be thrown away before it can be consumed,” Edwards added. 

In May 2015, DLA partnered with depot managers and Rutgers University to install 28 data monitors in the UGR storage area. Since then, the devices have recorded temperatures approximately 9 degrees lower than those recorded before facility improvements were made. The project is now in phase two, which focuses on ration traceability. 

“Rations are taken from storage to the assembly area for packing, but the entire pallet isn’t always used,” Edwards said. “We’re looking at the warehouse management system to see when these items are going back into storage and how their shelf life is tracked.” 

Another project will identify alternate materials for pouches used to store high-acid condiments such as hot sauce. The company that produces the laminate currently used is shutting down its production, so the ration industry must find another laminate with an acid-resistant sealant layer. Without the acid-resistant layer, the acid attacks the adhesives between the laminate structures.

“That can cause gas formation and off-flavors during the three-year shelf life,” Edwards added. “We don’t want to go back to using glass for these items, because it adds extra weight when the goal has always been to make things as light as possible so Soldiers can carry more.”

Primary and alternate laminate suppliers, as well as four potential laminates, have already been identified. In the next phase, researchers at the Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center will convert each laminate into condiment pouches and test its chemical resistance with pepper sauce, buffalo sauce and ketchup. 

Edwards is also overseeing projects to review the duplication of tests and inspections for combat rations, as well as the ability of Microwave Assisted Thermal Sterilization to sterilize group-sized entrees and their components. 

“Currently, group-sized rations are produced using a labor and energy intensive stream retort process,” she said. “With MATS, the process is completed in minutes versus hours and results in better taste and texture, as well as higher nutrient retention. That ultimately means greater consumptions of rations and less food waste.”