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I was reading through the presentation links on this page:

DSCP Subsistence Home > Operational Rations > Briefings
http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/briefs/index.asp

and in this presentation:

http://www.dscp.dla.mil/subs/rations/br ... res506.ppt

I found some interesting slides on issues they've had with the coffee and hot sauce and how they plan to fix them:

It´s really good that they improved the package of coffee! The contents of nearly every pouch I opened the last time has turned from brown to black, even by "fresh" MREs.

Best wishes mreheater72

Hooray for Natick. There is no other country on Earth that goes to this much trouble for their soldiers' field rations.

kman- I broke open one of those cases packed in 08/06 to see if the Tabasco improvement is in there, and it was. It wasn't sealed into the accessory pack. It was loose in the main bag.

Here it is next to an older bottle packed in January '05. They haven't changed the cap itself. Instead, there's a thin plastic disc stuck into the top of the newer one. I can see how this will improve the seal and stop the leakage.

Nice comparison shots, Richardw! I just had an MRE from late 2003 last night - it had tobasco but I can't remember what the inside of the top looked like. I'll go dig it out of the trash and take a picture.

2003 will have the old style, I think.

The PowerPoint slide says that the new cap was in production "beginning Summer 2006".

I'm thinking there were three styles because prior to 2004/2005 - good seal then bad seal then good seal again. I don't recall seeing the problem with the leaky tobasco bottles. That bottle from the 2003 MRE last night hadn't leaked at all - it was still nice and full.

That didn't occur to me. Maybe you're right. I can't recall the bottles leaking in the older meals.

One thing that wasn't mentioned in the DSCP powerpoint was that Nestle's is now, coincidentally, only packaging Taster's Choice single servings in the stick form, as are most of the commercial dry beverage mix manufacturers. Dominos, the supplier of the sugar packets is also packaging their sugar in stick packages now with a teaspoon of sugar in each stick.

With regards to the Tobasco sauce, I wonder why it's being packed/bottled by a third party rather than at McIlhenny's plant on Avery Island. They have production lines there that do nothing but produce the 1/8oz bottles for both retail sale and custom labling like for restaurants and at one time for President Bush (41, not Dubya).

[Additional Note] For those who might be interested, you can get minature bottles of Tobasco directly from McIlhenny in 144 or 500 case quanties for 34¢ and 32¢ each respectively with free shipping until 6/8
http://countrystore.tabasco.com/index_c ... moreid=C66

Hello,
in my 2003 crate, almost all the Tabasco bottles leak

Let me take back what I said earlier. I had another MRE from the same 2003 case for lunch and this one had a leaking Tobasco bottle. So that's one good one and one bad one from the same case.