MREInfo.com

Not a review per se... but I thought this vintage Mountain House "kit" might be of interest and I didn't see a more appropriate place to post it.

A couple of weeks ago I saw an ad on FaceBook Marketplace for "Mountain House - meals ready to eat MRE"

What the seller was advertising was a vintage Mountain House product from the early 1980's. This was a Mini "Just In Case..." kit consisting of two boxes. Each box contained 6 cases & each case contained six #2-1/2 cans; 72 #2-1/2 cans in this 2-box set.

A #2-1/2 can contains a little less than a third of the volume of the #10 cans that Mountain House sells today.

I contacted the seller and asked a few questions. The boxes had date codes on them that indicated they were from 1982. After some discussion, we came to an agreement on price. I then drove up to north Georgia and picked up these boxes of vintage food. As we loaded the boxes into my vehicle, I asked the seller how he had come to have them. As he described it, he was helping an elderly fellow around his house and this gentleman asked if he'd like to have these things. The older man had apparently purchased this "food insurance" 40+ years ago and had kept it in a cool, dry place. For whatever reason - perhaps he had purchased items to replace these - he no longer felt a need to keep them.

There were a few other miscellaneous items I also purchased as a part of this lot but I will concentrate on the Mini Just-In-Case items for the moment.


First Box (1-6)



Second Box (7-12)


Along with these were some literature:

An order form - Effective February 15, 1982



A brochure describing various Mountain House products.

I hope the folks on this forum find this interesting.

More in my next post...

Scott

Contents of the first box: Cases 1 through 6

Case 1 of 12


Case 2 of 12



Case 3 of 12



Case 4 of 12



Case 5 of 12



Case 6 of 12

I see date codes of M340 through M342 on these cases. I convert that to the the 340th day of 1982 through the 342nd day of 1982 (December 6th through Dec 8th).

Case 5 of 12 had been opened (all the rest were still sealed with their original tape). I will post pictures of the contents of Case 5 in my next post.

Scott

Case 5 of 12 had been opened...

The listed contents of the case were:

1 Freeze Dried Cheese Omlette Mix
1 Freeze Dried Scrambled Egg Mix with Bacon
1 Freeze Dried Scrambled Egg Mix w/Real Butter
3 Dehydrated Shreded Hash Brown Potatoes

Case 5 of 12 as found.



This can of Hash Brown Potatoes has a date code of L083 (March 24, 1981)



This can of Scrambled Egg Mix with Butter has a date code of L117 (April 27, 1981)



This can of Scrambled Egg Mix with Bacon has a date code of L103 (April 13, 1981)



This can of Cheese Omelette Mix has a date code of L114 (April 24, 1981)

So the individual cans were all manufactured in the spring of 1981 and the case has a date code of M340 (December 6, 1982) stamped on it.

Scott

Contents of the second box: Cases 7 through 12



Case 7 of 12



Case 8 of 12



Case 9 of 12



Case 10 of 12



Case 11a of 12



Case 12 of 12


Date codes on these cases continue to be M340 & M341. (December of 1982)

That's it for the moment. I will add some pictures of the other items that were included in this purchase soon.

Scott

very cool, thanks for sharing

Holy hell man! These are beyond awesome, even just that old order form is a gem in itself! Thanks for sharing, sounds like some real cool stuff in those cases, especially the "LURPS" - wonder if thats some play on the fact MH made LRP mains?

Amelieee1 wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 20, 2024 10:18 pm

...especially the "LURPS" - wonder if thats some play on the fact MH made LRP mains?

I noticed that the LURPS listing on the Price Sheet had a "Registered Trademark" symbol next to it.

LURPS TRADEMARK SEARCH

It looks like the LURPS trademark request was filed in 1974 by Oregon Freeze Dried Foods and was registered in 1975. If I read this stuff correctly (probably not) it appears that the trademark expired in 2006 due to the registration not being "renewed".

Best regards,

Scott