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Got some MCW parts from the US Marines close by my home

I see that mountain house have started to add best before date on the meals here is the case i got the bits in the date codes on the box No new dinners, same as the 2019, only new item so far is trailmix recovery with beef jerkey.

More info later when i get more MCW, cheers ken

That's nice that it has a full year shown, I wish they would use a 5 digit date on the outer packaging of the others to take the guess work out of which decade it's form.

Totally agree with the date code.

When you buy the civilian version of the same thing, the best by miraculously increases to 30yrs

Do we have any facts regarding why the MCW rations life is only stated as 3 years vs. the usual 30 year life span of other Mountain House products?

My only guess to this would be either, the Govt. contact states 3 years explicitly so they have modified the freeze drying process in some fashion to accommodate a reduced life span, or the pouch the MCW is contained in is not as "tough" as the regular Mountain House commercial pouch and cannot seal the product for 30 years.

i had a chat with the Marines i know here in Norway about the date being added on the MCW mountain house meals.
They told me that the main meals didnt hold rugh handling in cold weather and the vacum often was broken before they opened a pouc of mcw, and since the Marines save money they normaly pull back un opened mcws/ cases for use later on they put dates on the mains.

And btw the 2021 MCW are a bit cheaper than normal, the Marines told me they pulled out the mocca/peanut/banana bars since they cost more and replaced it with pop tarts, chocolate and brown sugar tarts, the other thing is they only have the blueberry granola in this MCW run...

MMs and mms peanut is stil there also first strike bar chocolate and cran ras, oh and they added a mini mocca first strike in some random menues

But there wil be a BiG upgrade in the MCW in about 2022-23 ish they told me so we wil wait and see what comes around

cheers ken

norge wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:01 pm

i had a chat with the Marines i know here in Norway about the date being added on the MCW mountain house meals.
They told me that the main meals didnt hold rugh handling in cold weather and the vacum often was broken before they opened a pouc of mcw, and since the Marines save money they normaly pull back un opened mcws/ cases for use later on they put dates on the mains.

And btw the 2021 MCW are a bit cheaper than normal, the Marines told me they pulled out the mocca/peanut/banana bars since they cost more and replaced it with pop tarts, chocolate and brown sugar tarts, the other thing is they only have the blueberry granola in this MCW run...

MMs and mms peanut is stil there also first strike bar chocolate and cran ras, oh and they added a mini mocca first strike in some random menues

But there wil be a BiG upgrade in the MCW in about 2022-23 ish they told me so we wil wait and see what comes around

cheers ken

They released the new MCW Menus a while back, menu 6 sounds awesome!
https://www.dla.mil/Portals/104/Documen ... 063022.pdf

cavguy wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:33 am

Do we have any facts regarding why the MCW rations life is only stated as 3 years vs. the usual 30 year life span of other Mountain House products?

My only guess to this would be either, the Govt. contact states 3 years explicitly so they have modified the freeze drying process in some fashion to accommodate a reduced life span, or the pouch the MCW is contained in is not as "tough" as the regular Mountain House commercial pouch and cannot seal the product for 30 years.

IIRC I did a little research into this a few years ago as I got a case and wondered why they had reduced shelf life despite similar if not superior packaging, it was indeed to do with US DoD requiring a 3 year maximum shelf life on their products use in MRE's, it didn't state why maybe some legal reason?
however i would be greatly surprised if they changed anything to their process to make them any inferior.

I will say however elsewhere on the MH US website they had said that they had increased the shelf life of civilian packs due to perfecting the packaging process when recently using new techniques on their military range of meals and that all meals can now benefit from those new military grade "techniques".
The packs are very very similar to the vacuum packed pro packs, they also dont handle cold weather good tbh so im guessing the same packing materials.

with good storage there's no doubt they would last as long as the civilian packs, also its a "Best before" date rather than a use by date.

it also should be stated that as an avid collector of many many freeze dried products that even the cheapest of civilian meals have at least a 5 year shelf life minimum usually.
and those are just meals packed in Mylar bags with an oxygen absorber.
The meals most similar in packaging style to the MCW other than MH are Real Turmat meal, they also have tri layer laminate pouches and are vacuum sealed and those have a minimum 7 year shelf life.

so I shouldn't worry to greatly about the shelf life of these bad boys too much.