By: Diane Wilson
Date: March 11, 2022
Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) have come a long way in the last 20 years. First developed as a replacement for the Long Range Patrol (LRP) ration, MREs were first created to improve taste, cost, and ease of use compared to predecessors. Over time they have improved but they still fight the rap that they’re the last thing you’ll want to eat.
Today we’ll take a look at one of the newer entrants to the market from Meal Kit Supply, in particular their Case of 12 three course meals kit. Keep on reading to see if the reputation is accurate or if this case of 12 MREs will buck the trend like many other newer MREs.
We tried each of the entrees in the package. Breakfast entrees like the maple bourbon oats and avocado toast were a good mix. Some were great. For example our favorite was the chicken fajita. This seriously tasty fajita comes with onions and peppers with real chicken chunks. While I had tried this before what was exciting to me was that there were tortillas that came with it. We have tried a lot of MREs before and had never seen tortillas and surprisingly they were good. I expected cardboard but they were far from it.
All of the 3-course meals come with an entree, side or sometimes a second entree, gatorade type drink powder, chocolate drink mix, cracker or other bread like item and an accompanying spread, hot sauce, cookie or brownie, coffee packet with creamer and utensils. That is one solid meal with a variety and a fair amount of calories (1350 on average).
Not one of the entrees was something you wanted to pass on. As with all shelf stable food options there days they are best when an appetite has been worked up. We were not a fan of a couple of the sides like the wheat snack bread but overall you will have no problem downing every item in the box. Even picky eaters will have plenty to find.
Ease of use
There are no easier options when it comes to preparing a hot meal away from home. Unlike freeze dried meals, like Mountain House, you don’t need a stove or even water to warm up an MRE. Simply open up the packaging, pour water into the flameless heater sleeve and place the entree on top. 10 minutes later you are eating a hot meal. Can’t get easier than that.
Unlike the MRE Star offerings we reviewed recently, the Meal Kit Supply case of 12 came with flameless heaters. A big plus. While that was great to know we actually burned that much water and that extra cost didn’t end up being a huge factor. If you likely won’t have water you could save some money without heaters.
Another nice feature and unique feature from the Meal Kit Supply kit is the julian date explanation on the box. Simple to understand it tells you know how to check the production date of your MRE items, there is also a Julian Date calculator which we found useful. The transparency is refreshing in an industry where you sometimes second guess how old your “new” food is.
Shelf Life
We gave the Meal Kit Supply MREs a 4 in our review just like we have in other MRE reviews. They are no different in their capability compared to other military rations but when you compare them to freeze dried foods like Mountain House pouches that can get many more years than MREs.
Meal Kit Supply had a nice temperature range chart to let you know how long your food will be good when stored at various temps. As you can see you’ll get 5 years when you store the MREs in about 70 degrees. A pretty fair shelf life.
Cost
At first look the retail price of $130 (with free shipping) seemed a bit steep compared to some kits that we can get shipped to our door for around $100. But you come to Top Food Storage Reviews for a reason, we break things down thoroughly to tell the whole picture. If the case of MREs cost $100 and this case cost $130, the cost difference is only $2 full meals but their meals average about 1,050 calories while Meal Kit Supply’s full meal MREs average 1,350 calories. That is a difference of 22%, while the price difference is 23%. Basically a wash. Calorie for calorie these two are within pennies of being the same price per calorie.
Variety
Something interesting we learned during our review is that Meal Kit Supply does not manufacture the entrees. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as there are literally just a few companies that make these meals. The foods come from a variety of well known contractors such as Sopakco. The real value that Meal Kit Supply provides is building full meals that make sense. Example: Lookout stew for breakfast is depressing at times. The breakfast menu with oats and avocado toast from Meal Kit Supply is a good start to the day. It’s a small detail but in the MRE world that’s why people recommend the Meal Kit Supply 12 Case over the others.